School was hectic, but I'm on the fluffy side now with summer break. Still, I had just enough time to keep things going.
GMEN Update:
3/8 of the control pairs have been fruited now, with 2 more on grain and the other 3 about to hit grain. Originally, I had 4 in fruiting, but I lost 1 sub to jumping the gun on spawning.
As a brief refresher, they are labeled by nuclear type (A or B) in Gm:En order, and further divided by mitochondrial type (mt). For example:
ABmtEN =
GoldMember type A
Enigma type B
Mitochondria type EnigmaThe 3 I have fruited already are AAmtEN, BAmtEN, and BBmtEN, and the results have been unexpected. What is fascinating is that AAmtEN and BAmtEN are presenting pseudocarp fruits. BBmtEN had a shorter colonization and fruiting time, with wild type fruit- nominal in both cases. Summer was already in full swing when BBmtEN started fruiting, and some fruit flies got into the sub, so that one is closed up rn. The others are in sealed bags, so pics aren't great.

Bottom fruit in AAmtEN and BAmtEN

AAmtEN - blobs with caps?

AAmtEN - Yes. Blobs with caps.

BAmtEN - Stranger blobs with less pronounced cap-like areas

BAmtEN - Previous fruits from opposing angle to give a sense of shape
Next on the docket is ABmtEN which is about ready to spawn, and BAmtGM which still has a week or so until spawning. The remaining AAmtGM, ABmtGM and BBmtGM are hitting grain in a couple minutes here. So here are my preliminary observations:
I expected pseudocarp formation to be a stacked set of recessive alleles, meaning the genes for it would have to be in both nuclear types of a dikaryon to consistently produce pseudocarps. This might not be the case.
The fact that AAmtEN and BAmtEN are producing pseudocarps indicates that the "Enigma A" monokaryon contains the mutations involved. The fact that BBmtEN has wild type fruit where the other two are only producing pseudocarps confirms this to some degree.
For counterpoint, this could be an error if Enigma A is actually dikaryotic. Since all 3 strains are from the Enigma side of the formed dikaryon, if Enigma A was a dikaryon to start it would consistently throw Enigma fruits. It is, admittedly, the simpler explanation. I don't believe it to be the case, however. From the appearance of the pseudocarps alone, they are clearly not "Enigma," even given that Enigma "shape shifts" from cauliflower to finned florets in general shape. I have to regenerate Enigma A from my slant and check again for certainty, but I spent a lot of time agonizing over the confirmation of those cultures.
Additionally, if AAmtGM and BAgmtGM
DON'T form pseudocarps, it will not only indicate that Enigma A is monokaryotic, but also that Enigma A is required
in conjunction with the Enigma mitochondria type. Neither AB culture (mtGM or mtEN) should have anything remarkable about them by this model (expecting generally wild type phenos), but they will still be fruited because I won't know until I know. I'll be printing everything that prints regardless, because all the cool kids are in the F2.
***
Meanwhile, I'm still technically searching for my prize in the GCKS cross, but proof of concept level has been achieved IMO. I have produced squat phenos with gold spores using the Swinger tek. Additionally, I have done an intragenerational cross with Swinger tek to try and combine traits I want from two different F2 cultures. On the back end, I will be dedikaryotizing both cultures and running them through the same tests as GMEN. I have all summer to, so why not?
The intragenerational cross predicts less variability than the current generation, but still more than the next full generation. For that reason, I consider this to be an interstitial generation and have labeled it F2b instead of F3. The clones were selected for body shape (Allum Sativum, a crenelated garlic-shaped fruit with small cap) and stature/spore color (Hotei, a short, stocky, gold-spored fruit).

Allum Sativum (GCKS.F2)

Hotei (GCKS.F2)

GCKS.F2b ASxH

ASxH #3 "Tall Goomba"

ASxH #5 (Gold Print)The swinger portion of this is already complete and dedikaryotization has already been started. As predicted, the fruits produced (dubbed GCKS.ASxH) are an intermediary range of phenotypes. Something neat happened that I wasn't expecting- roughly half the phenotypes produced gold spores. If you refer back to punnet squares, that means gold spore is heterozygous recessive in Allum Sativum. It's a small bonus, but it increases the odds of finding my prize pheno in the F3 (fatty squat with smallish cap and gold spore).

Inheritance pattern for homozygous x heterozygous***
Additionally, I've been passively running F4 multispore of my GOGH project and I found a really neat new pseudocarp. It's on grain and I'll be spawning soon (a day or two). I'm calling it Dragon Eggs, because there is a central oblate spheroid mass with patches of smaller, densely grouped nub growths over the surface, that look a bit like scaled eggs to me. I can't wait to see it in isolation.