Wake up and smell the orchids.
That's the idea a team of MSU researchers have been working on in an attempt to get people more interested in growing and buying the flower.
"People get apprehensive about orchids because they are exotic plants and they think they will be hard to grow," said Erik Runkle, an assistant professor of horticulture. "They aren't as difficult as some people think."
The trio of Royal Heins, a professor of horticulture, graduate student Roberto Lopez and Runkle have studied about eight of the thousands of orchid species during the last three years. Orchids come in a variety of colors, from purple to orange and can produce aromas such as coconut and raspberry.
MSU researchers are trying to determine how to induce the orchid to bloom in accordance with market demand. Orchids are the second most valuable of the potted flower crops in the United States and the retail sale of the flower brings in more than $500 million each year.
"The biggest demand for flowers and plants are holidays," Runkle said. "If we can understand what makes them flower then growers can follow a schedule.
"They can get more money for them if they can get them to flower any time of the year."
Greenhouse growers have expressed interest in a variety of orchid species, fueling the team to continue with their research.
"They already produce quite a bit in the Netherlands, but even people there don't know how to grow them," Runkle said.
The team has found the orchids respond well to cooler temperatures, especially the species zygopetalum, which after short periods of light followed by exposure to cool temperatures will produce a strong flowering.
Pinpointing the exact time a flower spike will form and manipulating the temperature to get it to that point has been the work of Lopez, who maintains the experiments on a daily basis. The orchid research will be used for his thesis, which he is finishing up this summer, he said.
"Very few people have done research on orchids," he said, describing why he was interested in embarking on the new terrain.
While Lopez usually is busy recording data for the more than 2,000 plants involved in the experiment, right now he's getting a break while the experiments shut down. Maintaining cool temperatures in the greenhouse during the summer is almost impossible with only swamp coolers, so the experiments will have to be picked up again in the next few weeks, Runkle said.
"It's going to be an ongoing project," he said. "The more questions you have answered, the more questions you have."
The project is funded by MSU's Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, Project GREEEN, greenhouse growers and the New York-based Fred C. Gloeckner Foundation Inc.
