Salty Thumb wrote in message ...

I wonder how true this still is. Apparently until recently (I don't have
any idea how recent is recent), orchid growers had no idea that a symbiotic
relationship with a certain fungus was required for pollention/flowering or
some such.

This is a little garbled. Fungal associations are not required for
flowering or pollination. Orchid seeds are basically naked embryos
without stored nutrients, so they depend on symbiotic fungi until they
grow true leaves and roots. Once the seedling has leaves and roots,
it is no longer compeletely dependent on fungi (although it may retain
mycorrhizal associations throughout its life).

Methods for germinating orchid seed on nutrient agar without fungi
were developed by Knudson in the early 1920's, and cloning of superior
orchids for the mass market was developed by Morel in 1960. Both
methods require skill at laboratory techniques and are not cheap.

So formerly, orchids were exceedingly rare, but now everybody
and their momma can have one. Just wondering if vanilla prices are still
artifically inflated because nobody's the wiser.

Vanilla flowers only last a day or so, and on commercial vanilla
plantations, each flower must be individually pollinated by hand. A
single vanilla "bean" is obtained from each flower, and the beans must
be carefully processed after harvesting. It is very labor intensive.

Vanilla orchids are epiphytic vines which typically must be quite
large before they flower. It is usually not worth the effort for a
grower with a hobby greenhouse to maintain that much vanilla biomass
just for a few seed capsules.

regards,

Nick

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