Orchids

choi

Jo Craven McGinty, Once Exortic Orchids Are Everywhere; Cloning has made them a Mother's Day favorite and the top US potted plant. Wall Street Journal, May 10, 2025, at page A3.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/o ... mmodity/ar-AA1EuhKP

Note: The online version is slightly more wordy, and the print version is attached below.
(a)
(i) "Yao-Chien Alex Chang * * * chair of the department of horticulture and landscape architecture at National Taiwan University in Taipei"

國立臺灣大學 園藝暨景觀學系 系主任 張耀乾
(ii) "Two of the world’s largest orchid growers are Matsui Nursery in Salinas, Calif, and Taisuco America, a subsidiary of Taiwan Sugar Corp, in Aromas, Calif."
(A) Matsui Nursery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsui_Nursery
("Toshikiyo Andy Matsui * * * In 1969 he bought 50 acres of land near Salinas, California building greenhouses for flowers. He grew chrysanthemums, then roses. In 1998 at age 63, Matsui switched to Orchids when stiff competition from other countries arose in traditional flowers. He is now the world's largest potted orchid farmer.[1][2]   In March 2015, Matsui's daughter Teresa Matsui became the president of Matsui Nursery.[3][4]")
engages in wholesales only.
• Matsui Nursery   松井ナーサリー  (ナーサリー is katakana for "nursery;" in katakana, a long vowel is denoted with a hyphen (in romanization of Japanese, a long vowel is denoted with a macron such as ō).  
• Toshikiyo Andy Matsui   松井 紀潔
(B) Aromas, California
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aromas,_California
("in Monterey County and San Benito County")
straddles the two counties. By the way, county seat of Monterey County is City of Salinas.
(iii) "Near the turn of the last century, a French botanist figured out that fungi provide the nourishment they need, and two decades later, a botanist at Cornell University devised a way to germinate the seeds in the laboratory by replacing fungus with a nutrient-rich gel."

(iv) "Phalaenopsis—the 'moth' orchid [蝴蝶蘭] "
(A) pronunciation for the genus name: Phalaenopsis (fah-lay-NOP-sis)
(B) Ancient Greek-English dictionary:
* φάλαινᾰ (noun feminine; romanizaition: phálaină): "moth"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/φάλαινα
(v) "Rob Griesbach, a plant geneticist who worked at the Agriculture Department at the time and is credited with developing the Toyland orchid, an easy-to-grow miniature."

Pedigree of Phalaenopsis Toyland: a hybrid of
Phal. Leucorrhoda × Phal. Hummingbird (1982)
reported in Jan 1, 1983.
https://orchidex.org/phalaenopsis/toyland/54860

(b)
(i) 花花世界，生活品味-台糖蘭花傳奇—台糖蝴蝶蘭的繽紛之旅. 台灣糖業股份有限公司 Taiwan Sugar Corporation, Dec 30, 2022 (under the heading 促銷廣告)
https://www.taisugar.com.tw/busi ... n=12676&s=11476
("台灣糖業公司於1946年成立 * * * 1980年起投入蝴蝶蘭試驗、栽培、量化生產之企業化經營 * * * 於2000年併購美國加州Rod McLellan公司之農務部門，成立美國加州分公司（位於舊金山灣區附近），為公司發展蝴蝶蘭產業的一大創舉，成功開啟了美國市場。2003年將蘭花產業獨立而出，設立「精緻農業事業部」，以蝴蝶蘭為核心產品")
(ii) 海外生產基地. Agriculture Business Division 精緻農業事業部, Taiwan Sugar Corp, undated
https://www.taisugar.com.tw/Agriculture/chinese/CP2.aspx?n=10220
("加拿大卑斯分公司
美國加州分公司")

加拿大卑斯分公司:
(A) Taisuco Canada Agriculture Corporation, Abbotsford, BC
City of Abbotsford (2021 population 154k in 2021) is southeast of City of Vancouver by 30-mile air distance. Both Cities are on Frazer River.
(B) Fraser River
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraser_River
("flowing for 1,375 kilometres (854 mi), into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of Vancouver"/ section 1 Naming)
McLellan Botanicals/Taisuco America

(c)
(i) orchid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchid

"Orchids have developed highly specialized pollination systems, thus the chances of being pollinated are often scarce, so orchid flowers usually remain receptive for very long periods, rendering unpollinated flowers long-lasting in cultivation.

"The seeds are generally almost microscopic and very numerous, in some species over a million per capsule. After ripening, they blow off like dust particles or spores. Most orchid species lack endosperm in their seed and must enter symbiotic relationships with various mycorrhizal basidiomyceteous fungi that provide them the necessary nutrients to germinate, so almost all orchid species are mycoheterotrophic during germination and reliant upon fungi to complete their lifecycles. Only a handful of orchid species have seed that can germinate without mycorrhiza, namely the species within the genus Disa with hydrochorous seeds.[22][23]

(ii) 陳健忠 and 張唯勤 Wei-Chin Chang (both of Academica Sinica 中央研究院), 花花世界：試管內的花花世界–蘭花的複製. In 科技大觀園 Sci-Tech Vista, 國家科學及技術委員會（國科會） National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan, Sept 5, 1991.
https://scitechvista.nat.gov.tw/ ... 4-85b4-c57a4fff97a5

Quote:

(A) "蘭花的繁殖有分株、無菌發芽及組織培養 [tissue culture or cloning] 等方式。許多蘭花每年會在植株的基部形成側芽，分株就是將這些側芽切離母體，並使這些側芽能夠單獨存活。採用這種方法可以獲得與母本性狀一致的下一代，但是繁殖的數量卻極為有限，在大多數的情況下，每年只能增殖一到兩倍左右。

"除了分株以外，無菌發芽是另一個繁殖蘭花的方法。蘭花的種子內含未成熟的胚，在自然界中必須和蘭菌共生之後才得以發芽生長。無菌發芽的方式是將蘭花種子播於已滅菌過的培養基中，而培養基當中所含的糖類及營養元素等成分，可以取代蘭菌的作用，幫助未成熟的胚發芽生長。採用這種方法雖然可以得到大量的種苗，但是，種子本身是經由有性繁殖而來，已經過基因重組，所以無法得到遺傳組成一致的下一代，如此一來，優良的品種便無法保存繁殖，而有些蘭花的種子發芽率較低，也是一大限制。

"目前商業栽培的蘭花多以組織培養的方式進行繁殖，採取植物的細胞、組織或器官進行體外培養，進而獲取性狀及遺傳物質一致的植株，這種方法已經被廣泛地應用在植物的繁殖及育種等領域上。

(B) "複製動物在目前或許還算是大消息，但是，複製植物老早就不是新聞了。植物經由扦插、壓條或分株等營養繁殖的方法，可以獲得性狀相同的營養系，許多植物便是依賴這種方法來繁殖。自從組織培養的技術開始發展之後，經由細胞、組織或器官獲得大量的營養系更是輕而易舉。

(iii)
(A) 分株 in Chinese corresponds to 株分け (pronunciation: kabu-wake) in Japanese, meaning: 植物の株を根付きのまま複数に分けて、それぞれの株を独立して育てる方法 (my translation: plant stump/ stem 株 (pronounced as kabu) along with some roots are split and grow separately..
(B) However, in orchid there is a term for the newly grown segment to be split 分株. See keiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiki
("The word keiki is Hawaiian for 'baby' or 'child', literally meaning 'the little one' ")
(C) 發芽 germination (Orchid seed germinates only in aseptic condition, naturally in vitro.)
(D) "蝴蝶蘭種子因胚乳已退化無發芽能力。 自 1922 年 Knudoson 氏，一連串的試驗証實，外界供應充足的養分，在適宜的無菌環境下，蘭種子可發芽生長。": from the Web.

In english, 胚乳 is endosperm.
---------------------WSJ
Orchids have long been coveted for the beauty of their blooms, but until recently, the exotic plants were a hard-to-grow luxury that few could afford.

Now, they sell for as little as $10 in supermarkets and big-box stores. They are the top-selling potted plant in America—and the single biggest day for sales is Mother’s Day.

The secret? Cloning.

Botanists can propagate orchids from seed, but they take years to flower, and no two plants look exactly alike. To succeed in the mass market, growers must supply plants of identical quality in bulk, and fast.

“By cloning, if you get 10,000 plants, the quality of the 10,000 plants will be the same,” said Yao-Chien Alex Chang, an orchid expert and chair of the department of horticulture and landscape architecture at National Taiwan University in Taipei. In addition, cloned orchids mature and flower in 12 to 18 months, compared with three or more years for plants started from seed.

In 2023, Americans spent $256 million wholesale on potted orchids. Poinsettias, the potted-plant favorite until orchids surpassed them in 2009, were a distant second at $167 million. Measured by the pot, orchid sale exceeded 34 million units.

Two of the world’s largest orchid growers are Matsui Nursery in Salinas, Calif., and Taisuco America, a subsidiary of Taiwan Sugar Corp, in Aromas, Calif.

Matsui Nursery sells 2.3 million orchids annually with Mother’s Day accounting for 14% of its sales, according to Teresa Matsui, the company’s president and chief executive. Taisuco America sells as many as two million plants annually with Mother’s Day accounting for 11% to 15%, according to Richard Muñoz, operations manager and safety director.

Together, they will ship around half a million plants for the holiday.

Being able to stock the shelves of Trader Joe’s, Home Depot and other outlets annually with tens of millions of orchids took a century of innovation, despite the plants’ extraordinary diversity and range.

There are as many as 30,000 native species and at least 150,000 man-made hybrids. They are found on every continent of the world except Antarctica and in every environment, from deserts to tropical rainforests. No other flowering plant comes close in terms of species diversity or geographic range.

And yet early botanists struggled to grow them.

To begin with, they didn’t understand how to germinate the plants. Orchids sprout from the smallest seeds of any plant in the world, holding nothing in reserve to feed offspring.

“They make a poppy seed look like a coconut,” said Marc Hachadourian, senior curator of orchids at the New York Botanical Garden.

How, botanists wondered, was an orchid embryo nourished? Near the turn of the last century, a French botanist [Noël Bernard] figured out that fungi provide the nourishment they need, and two decades later, a botanist [Lewis Knudson] at Cornell University devised a way to germinate the seeds in the laboratory by replacing fungus with a nutrient-rich gel [Knudson culture medium].

While significant, these advances weren’t enough to catapult the orchid to ubiquity.

That began to change in the 1980s, when Taiwan Sugar, or TSC, began looking for a new moneymaker. It settled on orchids and invested heavily in tissue culture techniques, also known as cloning.

Phalaenopsis—the “moth” orchid that is prevalent in markets and big-box stores today—became the primary focus of TSC’s agribusiness division.

“Several people showed how to tissue culture phalaenopsis, but they didn’t get a lot of plants,” said Rob Griesbach, a plant geneticist who worked at the Agriculture Department at the time and is credited with developing the Toyland orchid, an easy-to-grow miniature. “In Taiwan, they discovered a process that could produce lots of plants. Instead of hundreds, they could get hundreds of thousands.”

[Print does not have this paragraph, without which you do not know the next paragraph is about 分株 instead of cloning] Commercially grown phalaenopsis are typically cloned by snipping segments from a plant’s stalk where a node with a dormant bud is located. One stalk might have multiple nodes, and each can be propagated into a flowering plant that is genetically identical to its parent.

“You can make this one plant into three,” National Taiwan University’s Chang said. “After this, in maybe two months, you would do it again. Your three plants will get nine. And then again, and you will get 27.”

Theoretically, a million clones could descend from a single gorgeous orchid. But because mutations become increasingly likely with each generation of clones, most growers choose not to propagate that many.

Learning to reliably produce high-quality plants rapidly and in bulk was a major advance, but getting them to market was just as important.

Today, most potted orchids sold in the U.S. are propagated abroad, with the largest number coming from Taiwan.

Shipping is a challenge, but cloning provides an advantage for that as well by allowing growers to pack maximum numbers of identically sized plants into uniform packing boxes.

Sixty to 100 potted clones, depending on how mature they are, fit into one ventilated cardboard box, and 520 to 600 boxes into a 40-foot, climate-controlled shipping container for a voyage that will last about 18 days, if the destination is California.

U.S. companies continue to grow the plants until they are ready for the market.

In as little as four to six months, phalaenopsis orchids can be on their way to retail markets across the country in full bloom.

“It’s too good to be true,” Griesbach said. “I’m buying them for under $10, and they’ll last three months.”