Molecular Clonal Fidelity Assessment of Micropropagated Orchids Using DNA Markers

Orchids are unique ornamental plants with the most highly specialized floral architecture, pollination pattern, and breeding system. They dominate the international floricultural trade with their exceedingly beautiful flowers of varied coloration, patterns, and forms. The plants also possess high therapeutic properties apart from having excellent ornamental value. However, the populations of these multiutility plants have been reduced tremendously due to excessive unregulated commercial collection and mass habitat destruction. Micropropagation through tissue culture techniques offers an effective strategy for orchid conservation by rapidly generating plants on a large scale. Though in vitro orchid propagation has been performed successfully using different explants, the production of true-to-type plants is obligatory for conserving and commercializing the elite genotypes. Genetically identical plants have been produced by assessing the clonal fidelity of several micropropagated orchids using molecular markers. The present chapter emphasizes orchid micropropagation using different explants and their clonal fidelity evaluation employing diverse DNA markers.