Description: Cattleya granulosa, a native orchid of Northeastern Brazil is under great risk of genetic erosion due to its location in areas threatened by massive urbanization as well as collection of plants in their natural habitat for commercialization. Because many papers report contrasting responses depending on sucrose concentration used, in this work we evaluated the effect of sucrose on in vitro development of C. granulosa with the objective to contribute to the development of an efficient seedling production method, thus discouraging the collection of plants and facilitating future reforestation programs. Four sucrose concentrations were tested (0, 15, 30 and 45 g L-1) on seedlings obtained from seeds germinated in vitro. Sucrose enhanced strongly plant development, increasing significantly the height of seedlings and the production of new shoots, leaves and roots. In general, the higher the sucrose concentration was, the better the plant development was. Plant development was not limited by sucrose or other nutrients in the culture medium until 180 days of in vitro culture. Our results are important for reduction of cost of production of seedlings of this species