shroomrookie said:

I am an old hand but new to agar. I am very good at pf tek and g2g transfers. My question is this.

Would it be faster/easier to just grow out my normal MS grow and clone the best shrooms on agar? Verses isolation.

This is currently what I am doing I just want some input from you guys who know more about agar than I do.

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Hiya,

That's what I've done. MS -> BRF, grow out and pick the best I had back in 2016 and clone them to PastyPlates, and then Agar 2 Grain from there. Perpetuated that for awhile, before I had to move and my Pasty's I had carefully moved didn't kick in quick...their get up and go, must have got up and went.

Just started agar plates last month and currently logging my first attempts at isolation by going from a sporeprint of my old clone to agar plate in another thread.

Really digging plates for visibility, but will probably continue to use PastyPlates to grow agar pucks to try my first Tiger drops into 1qt grain jars.

Lots of good info on the Shroomery and elsewhere, but Bod's Easy AF Agar was where I started and then read D3monics Agar Transfer posts and am very happy. I read a lot of other stuff in between, but if I were to distill it down, both Bod's and D3monic's stuff are my base right now...Many thanks to them for sharing their knowledge!

Hope this was helpful...links to Bod's stuff and D3monic's in my sig.

Enjoy.

WFG

A.k.a said:

Try taking wedges like 1/4 that size, they’ll clean up a lot quicker. Definitely looks like it’ll be good for grain soon.

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Quote:

D3monic said:
Good to know man, thanks for looking into it.

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It was an interesting read. A lot of people like your agar tek and it would be worth an edit to mention to avoid the magenta and possibly the purple. I can't imagine the purple being any different being that the only difference in ingredients is the addition of yellow#6 and possibly the amount of red#3. It would save some new guys a few plates and transfers.

I've seen no germination on the magenta plates and all transfers start to look something like this:


Its difficult to get a decent photo but the mycelium grew down inside of the agar and is expanding outward at a very slow rate. That plate was transferred on 9/2/20. The mycelium is sectoring strangely as well and I'm not sure why.

Doctor Mario said:

That definitely looks better than anything that's happened for me on a magenta plate. Your photos always look so crisp. Are you taking those with a phone?

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WunFunGai said:

Thanks D3 for sharing your knowledge!!!

Used green instead of blue this time. Can't wait to try these out!

Enjoy.

WFG

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D3monic said:

WunFunGai said:

Thanks D3 for sharing your knowledge!!!

Used green instead of blue this time. Can't wait to try these out!

Enjoy.

WFG

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What brand did you use for the green?

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Hey, don't laugh...I used some French's food coloring, and now that I looked at the box, it's pretty dang old. I'm pretty sure my ex bought it's and that's around 20yrs ago. I'm a cheapass...it works...so whatever.

I used 10 drops of green for this one. The previous plates I did with PHA I usually use about 8-10 drops. The blue agar I have in cold storage, I used 10 drops and we'll see how that goes with my next set of plates.

I was stoked that these came out pretty clear like how yours does. Got the same LME that you use. It's a bitch in my humid environment though, it's so fine it starts caking up almost instantly on everything...lol

Based on the info you've shared. I found a 2 pack of 18/8 stainless steel straws on sale at Target for $4 with a .25" OD with silicone bendy on the end, and one I use for my drinking, the other is my agar punch. Works great!

I'll look into food coloring again, but I try not to change more than one thing in my process at a time to keep the variables to a minimum.

WFG