Annual germination cycle of salep orchid (Anacamptis sancta L.) and adaptation to outdoor conditions

Abstract

Orchids have an important place in plant biodiversity. Although many orchid species are endangered, millions of tubers are removed and destroyed every year. Anacamptis sancta is one of the most widespread and most collected species. Since orchid seeds do not have endosperms, their reproduction rate in nature is low. It can be germinated asymbiotically in the laboratory environment, but the critical stage in this process is the acclimatisation of the plants from the in vitro growing media to the outdoor conditions. Seedlings that cannot establish mycorrhizal relationships in the transferred growing media die. Studies on acclimatisation of salep orchids to the outdoor environment are quite limited. In this study, the germination cycle of Anacamptis sancta was determined by sowing seeds in monthly intervals into asymbiotic growing media, and adaptation studies were carried out by transferring the seedlings to different growing environments. Starting from May, seeds were sown on modified Knudson C (KC) medium between the 15th and 20th of each month. The seedlings, which reached the transplant size after approximately five months, were transplanted to three different growing media consisting of peat, peat/perlite (3/1) and soil. In this study, which was repeated every month, 300 seedlings were transplanted into each growing media in three replicates, and a total of 900 seedlings were transplanted into three growing media. As a result, germination percentages in all months were higher than the reported studies. Besides, for the first-time direct transfer of orchid transplantation from laboratory to field was carried out and statistically the most successful results in outdoor adaptation were obtained from the seedlings transferred to the peat in August.