For in vitro flowering of orchids, this is a useful place to start. For Dendrobium and Oncidium, we found that these genera are easier to induce, especially with a stronger cytokinin like TDZ, in the presence of coconut water. Phalaenopsis may be harder? Best wishes.

As there is a need for a low temperature drop in order to initiate floral initiation in many Phalaenopsis (unlike the tropical Dendrobium and Oncidium; may not be needed for the nobile-type Dendrobium) hybrids and species, you may wish to have plant hormone treatments, with or without coconut water. The composition of coconut water is listed here, a rough guide:

Article The Chemical Composition and Biological Properties of Coconu...

Dr. Jean Yong, thank you very much for your prompt answer with two literatures related to in vitro condition for orchid tissue culture, including flowering. I am very glad. According to Table 9-4 in the book chapter, Doriella Tiny orchid was induced flowering in 7-months old explants by using 5 mg l-1 BAP in VW medium than flower development in a BAP-free Hyponex media. It means that BAP just used as a trigger to switch the vegetative stage to generative stage? And to promote flower development , BAP-free Hyponex media was used, does it mean a commercial Hyponex fertilizer + agar medium?.

In Indonesia, we have low land Phalaenopsis and high land Phalaenopsis. Do you think both of them need a low temperature drop in order to initiate floral initiation?

For commercial mass flowering of most Phalaenopsis hybrids, we use either a temperature drop approach, or a special spray of mainly gibberellins. In your case, since it is in tissue culture, it should be possible to you to test the various combinations that we had discussed. Good luck!

I always recommend that colleagues attempting to do in vitro flowering to have some background in the regular classical control of flowering in tropical orchids. Here is the chapter about the classical perspective and literature of flowering, in mainly tropical orchids. Hope that you find it useful background literature to kick-start your work about in vitro flowering of Indonesian orchids? Best.

Cytokinins are needed for in vitro flowering of Cymbidium orchids.

For Oncidium in vitro flowering, both hormones and carbohydrates are crucial.

Oncidium was one of the earliest genus tested to be induced for in vitro flower formation. Ethylene may be involved, in addition to cytokinins.

At NUS (National University of Singapore), they had done alot of indepth work about the changes in cytokinins before, during and post-floral induction. Their work horse is Dendrobium. From my orchid industry experiences and our own experiments, in vitro floral induction of Phalaenopsis (esp for the species and hybrids requiring cool temperature for floral induction) looks likely to differ, and most likely to involve a gibberelling component. This is my "gut-feel"!

Here is another elegant NUS's research on in vitro flowering of Dendrobium. The main uncertainty here in this paper is the use of coconut water. Earlier, our lab's focus was to characterise all the cytokinins in coconut water. Lovely flowers, right? Especially nice to see nice orchid flowers growing in the GA7 containers indeed!

A good summary of the types of cytokinins, and the other plant hormones, in young coconut water is here. Do note that using coconut water from Java (Indonesia), Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, will give you different responses as the types of cytokinins will inevitably be different! Be careful!

Article The Chemical Composition and Biological Properties of Coconu...

Finally, if you need to measure the types of cytokinins in your own coconut water, or in your Phalaenopsis tissues, here is a useful scheme to follow:

Article Analytical methods for cytokinins

Yes, I met Prof. Yeoh from NUS at Nagoya International Orchid Conference 2009. He presented a poster about in vitro flowering of Dendrobium, and I presented my work on Agrobacterium-mediated transformation in Phalaenopsis amabilis orchids. I inserted KNAT1 gene of Arabidopsis into orchid genome and got the result that multishots developed from each inoculated protocorms on hormon-free medium, but not in non-transformant plants. Now, I inserted a Flowering Locus-T homologous gene of P. amabilis (PaFT) and Hd3a gene of rice into P. amabilis genome. In parallel, I use the method of of Prof Yeoh for in vitro flowering. It has already.7 months. But both of them do not flowering yet. I will learn your papers. I hope the problem will be solved. Thank you!

I also have experience on using two kinds of coconut (from Bali and Java islands) to get coconut water for Vanda tricolor orchid tissue culture. The seed germination and development of protocorms were much better on the medium with Coconut water that originally came from Bali than that from Java/.

We used GA3 in to the proliferation medium to have flowering in vitro condition of Genthiana pneumonanthe. You can see the pictures.

Dear sir, I am also interested in invitro flowering particularly in dendrobes.But in papers we frequently come across "Double Layered Media".can anybody please explain what thismedium?

Maurizio Micheli: Congratulation for your in vitro flower. How much the concentration of GA3 that finally succeeded to induce flowering in Genthiana pneumonanthe.? Is it Dicot?

Paromik Bhattacharyya : Double layered means two kinds of medium have to be used in the culture. Ffirst, we have to sow the seeds on solid medium, after it grow into protocorms, transfer it into liquid medium and shaking it for several weeks. Then transfer again onto solid medium, add a volume (1:1) of liquid medium containing BA phytohormon for the maintenance and induce flowering. I have tried the method for Phalaenopsis orchid, it is already 7 months, but it still have no flower yet. I do hope it will flower several weks/months later.

Endang Semiarti: MS was used enriched with BAP (2 mg/l), IBA (0.1 mg/l), GA3 (1 mg/l) and sucrose (30 g/l).

Maurizio Micheli I tried BAP +GA3 + Sucrose, but without IBA.. OK I will try., thank you!

The genotype role is essential in connection with the final result!

Some results published by a research group:

http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/detail?sid=1a28b285-e988-4a4e-9d8e-dd316446f16f%40sessionmgr104&vid=1&hid=101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#db=edshyr&AN=hyr.00125173

I am head gardener in Gothenburg botanical garden where we have the largest collection of orchids in Sweden. I wonder if you know of any long term in vitro growing of orchids. If it is possible there might be benefits in maintainence and minimal riscs of infestation. 

Finally, we got Phalaenopsis amabilis orchid flowering in vitro by by cutting the roots of the plants aged 6 months after seed sowing, leaving 1 roots , planted on 1/2 NP medium with addition of 22.2 µM BA and 3 mM KH2PO4 follow the procedures of Hee et al. (2009) with modifications. We published this work in Mercuriani et al. (2014, in Indonesian). It was flowering at 18 months after sowing. Usually P. amabilis needs 2-3 years for flowering.

Endang Semiarti are still working on in vitro flowering the plants? any progress?