Commercial Value of Orchids

What are the commercial uses of orchids, but a way to decorate the walls of Mexican restaurants. Even in various homes in Mexico, Orchids are favored for their ornamental value. Maybe this is the case due to the sentiment created around various ceremonies involving religious figures. Right from the 18th century orchids were cultivated for their commercial value. In fact, they were imported from the Bahamas to Britain. In those years the surround environment were still in a good state.

Sadly, this is not the case any longer, and many orchids are propagated using plant tissue culture methods. Interestingly, Hawaii has become a major hub for commercial orchid culture. In our modern era it is not uncommon to see all types of orchids gracing the tables of offices, homes, restaurant tables, and even department stores. During the last 15 years, orchids commercial popularity increased exponentially. According to the USDA Floriculture Crops Report, the orchid business seems to be blooming as the sales often come close to $1 billion if not more.

Another report that was compiled in 2010, showed how the orchid industry made headway within the natural medicine field. More and more of the orchid species have been introduced into was known as commercial trade. Due to over collection, many wild orchids are now endangered due to habitat destruction. This resulted in human intervention that led to various efforts to propagate orchids from seeds to orchid plants.

Propagation of Orchid Flowers

In most cases orchids are propagated through pollination. Once the seed pods mature (this can take a couple of months), the minute seeds can then be sowed. Unfortunately, not all seed pods contain seeds due to one of the parents plants being sterile. Amazingly, the encapsulated seeds are safe within a sterile environment for as long as the seed pod is closed. In time to come it will crack open, in which case the seeds have to be decontaminated before any attempts are being made to sow them.

The seed pot would get disinfected externally in order to kill off any contaminants, spores and germs. Often time the seed it cut open with a scalpel that was disinfected. In turn the seed masses would be sown into a flask that contains a proper nutrient solution often referred to as the mother flask. This operation gets carried out in a sterile environment. Commercial growers will go on to use what is known as a laminar flow hood. After a couple of weeks, the tiny seed starts germinating and will get transplanted to various other flasks in what is termed as "replating"

The transplanting will be necessary to make room for thousands of seeds that would need room to grow. The replating process may get repeated a couple of time until ready to be moved to the final flask that will contain anywhere from 10 to 40 plantlets, or more. This and other processes are done in the name of commercialism to ensure the continued growth of the highly popular Orchid species.