It can take a decade of hard work to bring a new orchid to market. While the rewards can be significant - the global orchid market is worth hundreds of millions of dollars - the competition to produce the next gorgeous flower is intense. Which is why, in the race to develop new orchid types, the laboratory is at least as important as the greenhouse. Centuries of human intervention - selective breeding and propagation - have made the genetic background of many commercial orchids a "disaster",