Evaluating Germplasm of Medicinal Dendrobium spp. via Analytic Hierarchy Process

To establish a comprehensive evaluation system of medicinal Dendrobium spp. with AHP method taking the growth traits, environmental adaptability and economic traits into consideration.The weight value of 9 evaluating factors including processing performance, alkaloid content, transplant difficulty and polysaccharide content was calculated. According to this system, 13 germplasm collecting of Yingshan in Hubei are evaluated comprehensively. The results showed that 13 medicinal Dendrobium spp. germplasm varieties are divided into 4 grades including excellent, good, general and poor. The 4 germplasm varieties including locally grown D.huoshanense and D.officinale of Yingshan in Hubei Province, D.monlilifoume introduced from Jiangxi Province and D.officinale introduced from Zhejiang Province were superior to other germplasm varieties in economic traits, growth traits and environmental adaptability, which could be applied to industrial production of medicinal Dendrobium spp. in Dabie mountainous region of Hubei Province.