Xinchao Cao

Caonong Herbal Health Food Business Department, Lin’an District, Hangzhou, 311300, Zhejiang, China
Author    Correspondence author
Medicinal Plant Research, 2026, Vol. 16, No. 4   
Received: 30 May, 2026    Accepted: 12 Jul., 2026    Published: 29 Jul., 2026

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

This article analyzes and compared the differences between the two cultivation modes in terms of ecological environment regulation, production management, growth performance, yield formation, active compound accumulation, and industrial applications. The results showed that wild-simulated cultivation promotes secondary metabolite accumulation through the reconstruction of natural epiphytic environments, ecological adaptation, microbial interactions, and moderate environmental stress, demonstrating advantages in plant morphology, metabolite richness, and overall medicinal quality. In contrast, facility cultivation relies on greenhouse environmental control, standardized seedlings, and precise water-fertilizer management to improve production stability, yield performance, and large-scale supply capacity. The two cultivation modes exhibit distinct characteristics in yield formation and quality development: facility cultivation is more suitable for large-scale and standardized production, whereas wild-simulated cultivation is more appropriate for the development of high-quality medicinal materials and ecological products. Future development of the Dendrobium officinale industry should promote the integration of advantages from both cultivation modes by establishing a combined production system of “facility-based seedling propagation-ecological cultivation-quality improvement,” strengthening precision environmental regulation, green cultivation technologies, and intelligent management, and developing a comprehensive quality evaluation system incorporating polysaccharides, flavonoids, alkaloids, metabolomic characteristics, and bioactivity-related indicators. These efforts promote the development of the Dendrobium officinale industry toward high quality, high efficiency, and sustainability.

Dendrobium officinale; wild-simulated cultivation; facility cultivation; active compounds; quality evaluation