Rare orchids find new homes in Telemark

In a steep hay meadow, a one-by-one-metre aluminium frame divided into 20 squares marks today's planting site. Each square will receive a single orchid. Although the plants have spent four years growing under laboratory conditions, they are still only a few centimetres tall.

Across Telemark County, between 400 and 500 orchids will be planted at twelve carefully selected sites. At Bolkesjø Gaard, near Notodden, NIBIO researcher Ellen Svalheim and research engineer Kristine R. Sundsdal are carrying out today's planting. The orchids originate from seeds collected in semi-natural hay meadows in the neighbouring municipality of Hjartdal.

"Artificial propagation of orchids takes time. They grow extremely slowly, so they are only ready for planting after four years," says Svalheim.

Strengthening threatened populations

The project is an example of conservation translocation, more specifically conservation reinforcement, where threatened species are introduced to strengthen existing populations or restore them to sites where they have disappeared.

The orchids are being planted in privately owned hay meadows in the municipalities of Hjartdal, Seljord, Tinn, Kviteseid and Notodden in Telemark County. All sites are managed under the Norwegian Environment Agency's Action Plan for Hay Meadows and follow site-specific management plans that combine ecological expertise with traditional land management practices.

"The participating landowners already manage their meadows through traditional mowing. They are committed to biodiversity and understand how important it is to maintain these valuable cultural landscapes," says Svalheim.

Why orchids are so difficult to grow

Many of Norway's rare orchid species depend on long-established semi-natural grasslands maintained through traditional agricultural practices and have highly specialised ecological requirements."They are extremely selective when it comes to habitat and reproduction. Finding these orchids in the wild is a strong indication that the habitat is of very high ecological quality," Svalheim explains.

Those same characteristics make them exceptionally difficult to conserve.

Unlike most plants, orchid seeds contain almost no nutrient reserves. Instead, they depend on symbiotic fungi in the soil to provide the nutrients needed for germination. Researchers still know surprisingly little about which fungi are involved and how these relationships develop.

The breakthrough came when NIBIO partnered with Swedish orchid expert Svante Malmgren, who developed an asymbiotic in vitro propagation method that bypasses the need for the natural fungus-plant interaction. Under sterile laboratory conditions, the seeds are grown on specially formulated nutrient media that replace the role of the fungi. Researchers must also break seed dormancy by carefully weakening the seed coat before germination can begin.

A lifetime devoted to orchids

The propagation methods used in the project were developed by Svante Malmgren, a retired surgeon from Falköping, Sweden, who is widely recognised as one of Europe's leading experts on the propagation of native orchids.

"Large laboratories in Europe propagate orchids commercially, but I developed the methods for many of our European species," says Malmgren.

His fascination with plants began in early childhood.

"I started planting seeds simply to see what would grow. Later I became interested in orchids. Tropical species could already be propagated successfully, but almost nobody had tried our European orchids. I thought it should be possible—and that's how it all began."

Over the years, he has attempted to propagate well over 250 orchid species.

Building on success

According to Svalheim, the elder-flowered orchid (Dactylorhiza sambucina) is among the most challenging Dactylorhiza species to propagate.

"The learning curve has been incredibly steep. We've made almost every mistake possible, and we would never have succeeded without outside help."

In the wild, only a tiny fraction of orchid seeds germinate. In this project, researchers achieved a germination rate of 30–40 per cent.

The experience has encouraged NIBIO to expand its work to other threatened orchids. Researchers at Landvik are already propagating two critically endangered species that survive at only a handful of locations in southern Norway.

Norway has around 35 native orchid species, and 24 of them are included on the Norwegian Red List for Species.

Now nature takes over

The researchers have installed data loggers to monitor air temperature, soil temperature and moisture at each planting site.

Next year they will return to assess survival and growth.

"If we're lucky, some plants may flower as early as next spring, but it could also take several years," says Svalheim.

The orchids have spent four years making the journey from laboratory to meadow. From now on, their future lies in nature's hands.