Hey Y'all, I'm inGonna give pans a good effort this year in addition to the usual cubey cubes.
I'd like to plan some small outdoor runs in pots and might tack on some novelty grows for funsies.
Gonna work with what I have on hand, but maybe more if I get the inspiration. Who's to say?
Penis Envy abandoned for LAGM due to weak/weird growth on germ and t1 platesAlbino A+
Pan Cambo Thailand Suphanburi Goliath
Pan Cyan Hawaii
Let's boogie
Update
UpdateJanuary 2, 2024
Got 'em streaked and labeled just before midnight. Gotta love havin plates and syringes in the closet.
Gear: SAB, plates, syringes, inoc loop, torch, scotch, tunes

Check out that time stamp on the stove

Update
UpdateJanuary 7, 2024
Hey y'all
I've been enjoying the spirit of LAGM and seeing everyone's updates.
When I started a week ago I overlooked the fact that one of the inspirations for LAGM was to demystify the process for newcomers, so from here on out I will include details and attach links when I can. I've never written down what I do so I guess this will also serve as my personal reference for whenever I come back from taking breaks. Everything I do has been gleaned from other members and so many awesome threadsMy Agar Recipe:
The plates I used were pastywhyte's pasty plates using
Pastywhyte's Easy Agar Tek. Here's the recipe I had in my phone notes from 6 years ago. I don't know how true this recipe is to the original but it works for me and I do it. I think it makes about 6-8 pasty plates depending on the container I use (idk, it's been months since I've made it):
- 1.5 - 1.75 grams agar powder (I stay on the lower end for softer agar, better for germination i think?)
- 1.5 - 2 teaspoons instant potato flakes (no flavoring you freaks) (I stay on the lower end or even cut the amount in half if I want bolder/more-vigorous growth because I think I read that's a thing?)
- 1/2 cup water
- Drop of honey
- ~3 drops of food coloring (I like blue) (apparently red food coloring is anti-fungal?! Might be an urban legend but the last time I used red things didn't go so well...coincidence?...readjusts tin foil hat)
Recipe is easily doubled, just use twice as much of each ingredient.
My containers:
Lately, because I think Glad stopped making the 4 oz round containers (and the ones I ordered off amazon must have sat in a hot warehouse for years because none of the lids fit), I've been using wide mouth half-pint jars with a plastic (no rust!) Ball brand black/grey plastic lid with a 1/8" - 1/4" hole drilled in it (or whatever size my Dremel bit is; a hot nail will do just fine), covered with micropore tape (I'm sure polyfil or other alternative will work). The high and straight walls of the jar are not ideal but I've been managing just fine in my still-air-box, just have find a good angle so I minimize the amount that the unsterile handle of my scalpel/inoculation loop hovers over the surface).
How I prep the agar for plates:
I add the water to an egg sauté pan (I like the low/angled walls for whisking) and add potato flakes, let 'em cook a few minutes to incorporate (keep it at a simmer so the water level doesn't evaporate too much, i try to keep the water to agar ratio pretty stable) then add drop of honey and then agar powder
a little at a time, stirring with a whisk so it doesn't clump, finally i finish with the food coloring. I spoon it into my containers a tablespoon at a time (the larger spoon in your spoon drawer) and then I add the remaining mixture by the spoonful or half-spoonful, depending on what's left in the pan, jar-by-jar until the depth looks good (some containers have a rise in the bottom-middle that I try to overshoot).
Finish by putting on container lids, fold up half-a-paper-towel into a square and put it on the lid, then wrap the whole thing in foil. I fold and roll the excess foil to the sides of the container, keeping the bottom as flat as possible, because that means the agar disc will be as level as possible when it cools after the pc cycle.
Prepping the PCI prep the pc by loosely crumpling up foil and lining the bottom of the pc so that my trivet will sit several inches off the bottom, then add 1.5" - 2" of water, and put the trivet on top of the foil. This helps keep the plates away from the boiling water bubbles. Load the plates and put lid on pc.
I vent the pc for 10 mins then I put on the weight. Once the pressure rises to 15 psi, I pc for 45 mins, then turn the burner off and allow the pc to return to 0 psi naturally.
How I store my containers:
This I learned from Josex in his
Josex' Guide to No-pour Agar tek: After pc reaches 0 psi, I take the plates out of the pc while still hot and let them settle on a flat surface so the agar disk (hopefully) solidifies with a flat surface (in a short long rectangular plastic tote with a lid where they live in my closet until I need to use them. I put the lid on the tote after they cool so condensation doesn't build up inside the tote. A few paper towels laid in the tote will soak up ambient moisture.)
The plates I used to swipe spores on January 1 had been stored for several months. The benefit of this is they had no condensation on the sides! My visibility with no-pour plates was greatly improved!!!
Edit: these plates had better visibility but they were also dry as hell and not great for germination.How I Inoculate:
For the inoculation process I used a collection of inoc loop info that I gathered and internalized from reading/searching on here, but
BOD's DIY Inoculation Loop TEK is a great place to start. One tip I picked up from other members is to cool your hot and freshly-flamed loop in the agar of your receiving dish before shooting/swiping spores onto the loop. A hot loop can cook and minimize the germination ability of your spores. I was in a hurry and jammin tunes and drinkin scotch when I swiped plates on the 1st so I forgot this step, but I made two plates of each variety and I only sterilized my loop between varieties, so at least the second plate received a streak with a cooled-down loop
Edit: For the second round of plates I just dropped the spore solution directly from the syringe onto the agarA few days ago I believed I saw germination (is that a white clump starting to form or is that just the light reflecting off a small indentation left by the inoc loop?!?)
Today I for-sure have germination on two plates. The small white dots in the photos are dried agar/potato flake residue on the walls of the container from where the mix boiled up during the pc process. The denser, bigger, whiter dots are spore germination

AA+

Pan Cyan Hawaii

Update
UpdateJanuary 11, 2024
Seeing some germination on a Penis Envy plate

Half my plates have growth but all growth is happening very slowly. I think it's a combination of cold temps (low-mid 60s) and using old plates that are kinda dry.
I made fresh plates a few days ago so I will noc some up this weekend (my pan cambo has not germinated and I wanna give that another go, plus I'd like to get more diversity with AA+) and I may do some transfers if the myc has moved a significant distance from the germination points (it's all going very slowly)
Update
UpdateJanuary 14, 2024
Woke up nice and early so I cleaned off the kitchen counter and brought out the SAB.
Shot some of the pasty plates I made last weekend with mss of Pan Cambo Thai and AA+, two plates of each.
Made T1 transfers of Penis Envy and AA+. I wasn't impressed with either variety's germ plate, but thought I'd make the transfers and see what happens.
No pics of these plates because the condensation is ridiculous.
My Pan Cyan Hawaii germ plate is coming along with several germination points. One has spread far enough for transfers but the other two are not yet ready so I'm gonna let it ride a little longer:

Gonna cook more plates today so I'll be ready for transfers whenever the donor plates are ready
Update
UpdateJanuary 18, 2024
My original AA+ plate had only germinated in one spot as a bright white fuzzy mass that reached as high as it did wide. Took transfers to a few plates anyway to see what was up (because the Oak Ridge I did last year also started out growing very vertical on the germ plates but performed super well!). Anyway, the two T1 plates are growing fast and fuzzy and I don't trust em. Today I put em in a ziploc and then a Tupperware and set em aside to see what happens. Either I've got two dope mold plates or I'll have plins in mid February. My gut says mold.
I've already noc'd up a few fresh AA+ plates bc I've never grown this variety and wanna give it a go. Germination is happening on both so looking forward to making transfers soon.
I ditched my PE because it was a translucent top crawler and overall the agar it touched looked gross. Idk wtf it was but it wasn't worth my time. It looked like myc in its growth patterns but was only visible from the way it reflected under a flashlight. I already have a few PE clone cultures going from 2023 so I will use my time and space to focus on those. Might do some top fruited cakes if I want more options but that won't be part of this thread.
Update
UpdateJanuary 24, 2024
Did some T1's today of Pan Cambo, Pan Cyan and AA+. Took transfers to multiple plates. Some of the transfers came off the xacto knife clean and others I had to wiggle and waggle off the blade

Here's a pic of some of them . Germ plates on bottom, T1's on top.

You can see some non-LAGM cakes in the background that I shot with mss of Pan Cambo and Pan Cyan during the same SAB session. I always feel like I'm missing out on a good culture when I make agar selections so I plan to top-fruit these cakes to look for clone candidates.
Anyway, I know this isn't technically LAGM, but thanks to the LAGM process I know these two spore syringes are what I would call "clean" because they have not shown signs of contamination on agar, so I thought I'd go for it. 
Cakes were made of store-bought black kow manure + oats + verm and pc'd 90 mins.
I was inspired by the following wonderful threads: V.L's
EF-tek (Exotics Fanaticus cakes), MacMerdin's
MacMerdin's Simple Pan-Cakes, MudaFuka's
Updated Bottle Tek New and improved, and Bod's
PF tek for cloning on the EZ.