Genetic And Environmental Effects On Allometry Of The Medicinal Plant Dendrobium Officinale (Orchidaceae) From Yunnan, Southwest China

Medicinal plant (MP) cultivation is taken into consideration for the sustainable use of MPs. The effort in developing effective management of MPs has focused on biomass allocation of to the medicinal parts. Two experiments were designed and carried out to explore genetic and environmental effects on the biomass partitioning patterns of Dendrobium officinale Kimura et Migo in southwest China. We found that there were significant differences in the average of stem biomass (SB), leaf biomass (LB), total biomass (TB), and stem length (SL), respectively, among nine provenances of D. officinale (p<0.01). The allometric relationships differed among provenances, indicating different growth strategies in different provenances of D. officinale. Significant differences in the average of SB, LB, TB, and SL, respectively, were also found among the same provenance of D. officinale cultivated at five different sites (p<0.01). It suggested that environmental factors influenced the biomass accumulation in the plants. These findings show that the biomass allocation of D. officinale was able to respond to both genetic and environmental effects. Therefore, the provenances with high-yield should be selected for commercial cultivation, and a suitable environment for D. officinale growth should be considered.