So, I have just had a few of my initial successes in my journey with cubes... I was given some agar slices that had been (when it comes to cloning etc, my terminology is probably going to be difficult to follow for someone who knows what they are doing) inoculated with some strain that this person had cloned (I believe) and I set out to make the agar useful to me. Initially, I sliced the agar into four sections and used three to create a birdseed grain spawn. I believe they must have all worked out fine, but this has been several months ago now. I don't remember getting rid of any jars at any point. I then took the remaining section and I placed it in one of those oversized syringes and sucked up some water/honey/syrup fluid (that I created based on an easy liquid culture tech I found, and I feel badly that I am not sure which one in order to give the necessary credit to that individual. I then (I sometimes do this) read up on my actions after taking them and found it is not advisable to make a liquid culture using agar. However, I then used the liquid culture to inoculate five invitro (Violet's invitro tech) number five ziploc screw top containers. I used the brown rice flour/ verm tech. It worked. Fruited numerous times, no contams (although perhaps I am wrong because there were two sections in two containers that did not colonize by the time fruiting occurred)... I was pretty pleased with the whole process. So I decided to start the process again, I followed the tek, but this time I used the grass seed method. I followed the tek except for using grain spawn to inoculate (I am not sure what the tek says about that). I used the birdseed grain spawn for four of the containers and used the same liq culture for the fifth. Initially, colonization was occurring much more quickly in the containers with the birdseed (as I'd expected), but by the time all five were colonized it was equal, to the day. I then cracked the lids and waited. The container with the liq culture has now fruited as expected and one other container has one fruit. I have harvested the liq culture one and am expecting another flush. After waiting, I used two of the colonized containers in a different venture that I have not seen results for yet (but would not expect to) and of the three remaining, the third still has not fruited. Does anyone have any ideas as to why it could have turned out that way? I am mostly curious, since as I said, I made the liq culture and then read up and expected it might not work out. And then, it seemed to really kick butt.
|
So, just an update, I ended up getting maybe five or six very small fruits from the containers that I inoculated with the grain spawn and some nice ones off the one I did with the l.c. I still find that strange. The other venture did produce fruits, but I have nothing to compare it to as it was the only time I have attempted that method. It doesn't seem anyone is particularly interested in responding to this, but there may be some I interested party at some point so I thought I would keep current.
|