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 lorbitherize
mush gushing
Registered: 11/24/05
Posts: 320
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 The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial
#8803460 - 08/20/08 11:02 PM (3 months, 13 days ago) |
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Posted in my Journal.
I've been using this technique for a while now,
and have met with great success... not to mention
having saved a lot of time and expense.
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lorbitherize
mush gushing
Registered: 11/24/05
Posts: 320
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 Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: lorbitherize]
#8825866 - 08/25/08 04:37 PM (3 months, 8 days ago) |
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 drwatson
MysticalPhysician
Registered: 10/29/07
Posts: 500
Loc: nowhere land
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: lorbitherize]
#8825929 - 08/25/08 04:49 PM (3 months, 8 days ago) |
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Was the time to colonize the petri comparable to MEA or PDYA?
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** Emo is the disease strangling the nation **
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drwatson
MysticalPhysician
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Loc: nowhere land
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: drwatson]
#8825931 - 08/25/08 04:50 PM (3 months, 8 days ago) |
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Although I suppose you could have just as easily used ME or PDY
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** Emo is the disease strangling the nation **
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lorbitherize
mush gushing
Registered: 11/24/05
Posts: 320
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: drwatson]
#8825975 - 08/25/08 04:59 PM (3 months, 8 days ago) |
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To tell the truth, it has been so long since
that I don't remember an exact figure, but can
certainly say that it did seem to fill out at
a reasonably steady pace.
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lorbitherize
mush gushing
Registered: 11/24/05
Posts: 320
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: lorbitherize]
#8836496 - 08/27/08 03:15 PM (3 months, 6 days ago) |
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lorbitherize
mush gushing
Registered: 11/24/05
Posts: 320
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: lorbitherize]
#8854593 - 08/31/08 12:14 AM (3 months, 3 days ago) |
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Edited by lorbitherize (09/04/08 07:04 PM)
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lorbitherize
mush gushing
Registered: 11/24/05
Posts: 320
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: lorbitherize]
#8878722 - 09/04/08 07:05 PM (2 months, 29 days ago) |
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^^ see above ^^
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drwatson
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: lorbitherize]
#8878922 - 09/04/08 07:41 PM (2 months, 29 days ago) |
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Did you use oatmeal powder again? Have you done this with malt extract powder?
edit: oatmeal powder
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** Emo is the disease strangling the nation **
Edited by drwatson (09/22/08 06:00 PM)
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lorbitherize
mush gushing
Registered: 11/24/05
Posts: 320
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: drwatson]
#8879116 - 09/04/08 08:10 PM (2 months, 29 days ago) |
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drwatson >> Did you use oatmeal power again?
I did use oatmeal powder, but the three plates shown
are the identical ones that were prepared in the
pictorial.
>> Have you done this with malt extract powder?
Unfortunately no, as earlier this year the only
single brewery supply store in my region closed
its doors for good, and I haven't gotten around
to locating another source for it.
Alternately to oatmeal powder, as far as household
ingredients are concerned, one might also try the
following - either as main ingredients or
additives:
yeast
powder of dried potato
whole wheat flour
ground semolina (spaghetti)
ground brown rice
corn syrup / honey
powdered birdseed
..etc..
As for the reason I'm currently using oatmeal,
I've found that this particular storebought strain
of agaricus prefers it to the other ones.
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MycoAu
Registered: 07/18/07
Posts: 650
Last seen: 13 hours, 17 minutes
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: lorbitherize]
#8879755 - 09/04/08 10:12 PM (2 months, 29 days ago) |
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I'm currently using this mix as per the instructions above (with gentamicin added) to try multispore growth. I'm using P. ostreatus. I picked a poor choice for container though (I used a pint sized jar) as a result of lack of time to pick up something else. I will be doing this again several times with different mixes (eventually) in a better (more visibility) container.
Thanks for the idea- works great so far.
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drwatson
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: MycoAu]
#8897208 - 09/08/08 04:37 PM (2 months, 25 days ago) |
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I'll be cooking some up in the next couple hours.
I have a 4lb bag of malt extract so I'll be going with that.
As MycoAu said, thanks for the idea!
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** Emo is the disease strangling the nation **
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lorbitherize
mush gushing
Registered: 11/24/05
Posts: 320
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: drwatson]
#8898332 - 09/08/08 07:55 PM (2 months, 25 days ago) |
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Everyone is certainly welcome - I'm glad it's being
put to some use.
There is something that I thought of the other
day that might be of some additional value when
preparing the dishes... It would take more time
to implement a series of plates with, but might
result in a better final appearance.
It would involve the same exact process until
the part before the dishes are sealed, the con-
gealed disk of cornstarch gell would be removed
from its plate and inverted, then being placed
back in position - like flipping a pancake. It
may help to refrigerate them a bit first.
Doing this would result in having a much
smoother surface on which to observe mycelial
growth, although I have noticed that under
certain conditions, bubbles may form and
distort an otherwise smoothly-spread surface.
As of yet it has only happened when cooking a
single plate by itself, but there are some
precautionary measures one can take... first,
be sure that the temperature is set at the
lowest possible level to avoid excessive boiling
and escape of steam. Also, be sure that there
is ample room separating the bottom of the
dishes from the water level, and finally -
always cool them to a touchable level before
removing from the cooker.
In any case, I would first suggest doing a test
batch of like 3-5 dishes before going full-blown
with it.
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MycoAu
Registered: 07/18/07
Posts: 650
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: lorbitherize]
#8898662 - 09/08/08 08:52 PM (2 months, 25 days ago) |
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Obviously, this mix cannot be made into a transparent version for observation while still being OTC and cheap. However, to improve the visibility of the mycelium and potential contaminates, while also encouraging germination of some spores (if that is the purpose it is being used for), be sure to add actvated charcoal to the mixture after being heated to the point of congealing (thickening). The blackish background will cause everything to stand out and is much more aesthetically pleasing.
BTW, gentamicin/cornstarch/oatmeal mix worked fine for germination of some P. ostreatus. Growing out just fine. Only problem I've seen so far is that it is drying out and pulling away from the sides of the jars I have it in. I'm sure this is only because I've got tyvek over it (too much air exhange is allowing faster evaporation). Petris probably won't have this problem, but I don't have any glass petris at the moment.
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drwatson
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: MycoAu]
#8898707 - 09/08/08 09:02 PM (2 months, 25 days ago) |
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Actually I'm glad you mentioned that bit about adding activated charcoal. After I poured my plates I realized it was going to be a little difficult to see growth. I was thinking along the lines of adding food coloring but activated charcoal is a much better solution!
It helps a lot when someone points out the obvious.
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** Emo is the disease strangling the nation **
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MycoAu
Registered: 07/18/07
Posts: 650
Last seen: 13 hours, 17 minutes
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: drwatson]
#8898766 - 09/08/08 09:12 PM (2 months, 25 days ago) |
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Visibility issues? Tell me about it. How do you think I remembered the charcoal thing. White P. ostreatus mycelium doesn't show for at least a day (if not more)after germination. I remembered somebody posting some beatiful pics of charcoal agar grow out with mycelium and it was rather stunning. I figured it would work just as well here. Sadly, I don't have any on hand at the moment. Maybe this weekend I'll pick some up and run a second set of jars to see how much better it shows up.
Does anybody else have suggestions for improvements to this (IMHO) very cheap replacement for agar? I would really like to see a group effort on this. It could eliminate some of the fear of using agars amongst the new cultivators because it doesn't matter if you screw up 100 times- it's only costing a few cents and some time!
I keep hearing that people are intimidated by agar - I remember the feeling. If this becomes a standard, at least for a few species, especially cubes, it could foster a lot experimentation.
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lorbitherize
mush gushing
Registered: 11/24/05
Posts: 320
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: MycoAu]
#8899238 - 09/08/08 10:33 PM (2 months, 25 days ago) |
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On the issue of petri dishes - it may turn
out that sterilization is not absolutely
positively necessary to achieve suitable
results.
My reason for stating this is because perhaps
someone really wishes to begin culturing
tissue samples but they have no pressure
cooker, no flow hood, glove box, scalpel,
alcohol flamer, and on top of that they
already spent all their money on horses
& liqour (or whatever).
Theoretically, if pasturization does a good
enough job to ward off contaminates, there's
no reason that our theoretical person shouldn't
be able to save up for a few days and get a
sleeve of plastic petris for $5 - $10 and be
mostly on their way.
There was this one time I cooked up a small
pot-full of c.starch gell just for the purpose
of having it contaminate. I left it in normal
room-air with a peice of saran wrap on top, and
it took about 1.5 weeks for anything to show.
I'm thinking, stuck enclosed in a petri dish
having been pasturized for an hour, it would
most likely take a lot longer than that for
baddies to grow.
(?) may be worth a try
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ranonar
Stranger
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: lorbitherize]
#8905593 - 09/10/08 05:25 AM (2 months, 24 days ago) |
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Lorbitherize, I love the pictorial! Can you please tell us what software you used?
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lorbitherize
mush gushing
Registered: 11/24/05
Posts: 320
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Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: ranonar]
#8907151 - 09/10/08 01:47 PM (2 months, 23 days ago) |
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Thanks! - I used Photoshop... 
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fishfarmin
back after 7+years
Registered: 09/04/08
Posts: 93
Last seen: 20 minutes, 38 seconds
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 Re: The Cornstarch Culturing Medium Pictorial [Re: lorbitherize]
#8921313 - 09/12/08 10:50 PM (2 months, 21 days ago) |
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you can also use just brf mixed to a medium consistency with liquid fruit pectin.i dont know how well it will work with pastuerization,but ive never had any problems when using a p.c..its about 2.50 for the fruit pectin and we all know the price of brf.
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