Research advances in breeding of Dendrobium officinale

Dendrobium officinale is a valuable Chinese herbal material，widely used in fields of food and medical care. Development of germplasm resources research and breeding of D. officinale were summarized by citing literatures in recent 20 years. Scholars carefully studied the morphological identification，molecular identification，analysis of agronomic characters and component analysis，laying down a foundation for the work of future breeding research. New varieties of D. officinale were obtained by selective breeding，cross breeding，mutation breeding，ploidy breeding and other conventional breeding methods. Molecular mark assisted breeding，transgenic breeding and other modern biotechnologies would become the key works of breeding from now on. This paper also put forward some questions and prospects during the breeding，to provide reference for germplasm improvement of D. officinale in the future.