kirkeng said:

The white tomentose idea is interesting. When I think back to my best performing mexicana and tampanensis cultures, the ones to show some discoloration/banding typically performed better than whiter counterparts. I suspect others would have a differing point of view or experience but brings creedance to that idea in my experience.

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Yeah I caught that in the Zapo paper Alan had worked on and I thought I saw some other comments while looking for Guzman's observation of pigmentation. The rabbit hole is fascinating and I haven't researched pigment since my albino days.

the_chosen_one said:

Tripped over this earlier today. Added to journal and cross posted from the Pan thread where it seems to be a topic as well. 

Not sure about Pans, but with section Zapotecorum some pigmentation is not uncommon. It becomes more common with section Cordisporae and very prevalent across the entire Fagicola complex. The culprit is typically nutrients, but several other factors come into play. Different species, but much of this applies to our little friends. It's actually a pretty cool read too.
Observations on Some of the Mycelial Growth and Pigmentation Characteristics of Cordyceps militaris Isolates

From what I've been able to gather beyond this article, it may not be a bad thing to have at least a little pigmentation and we may want to avoid tomentose pure white mycelium as it may lead to non-fruiting cultures with some species.


I've seen little to no reference of pH levels but it may be there between the lines. Again likely tied to nutrient uptake.

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scapo said:

Yea the cordisporae species are the heaviest pigmenters for me so far. I put the fagicola complex into the sect. Cordisporae

I have now observed it in ps mexicana, ps caerulescens, my cf. papuana, and my ps azurescens and ps subaeruginosa as well (in LC for these two, not on agar)

Thanks for sharing!

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kirkeng said:

The white tomentose idea is interesting. When I think back to my best performing mexicana and tampanensis cultures, the ones to show some discoloration/banding typically performed better than whiter counterparts. I suspect others would have a differing point of view or experience but brings creedance to that idea in my experience.

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kirkeng said:

@scapo, I think your on to something, I’ve started to notice in my neoxalapensis the much darker brown pigmented sections even becoming more leathery and the blade having a harder time cutting through it, while the less pigmented is slicing right through easy as can be. So there is a noticeable textural change for me. Further observations with neo seem to be showing the dark brown discoloration becoming its own “layer” of sorts with fine white threads above. Mine haven’t seem to have halted though at least on the current t2. As well transferring from darkly pigemented sections continues on normally after transfer. I should have taken pictures before I made transfers but most recent cut was sectoring into several distinct areas all showing differing levels of pigmentation, where as said before the darkest being harder to slice through.

@adas, yes yield has been noticeable better for me with pigmented cultures. The few times I’ve ran very white ones I’ve had a pretty substantial decrease. Granted I don’t want to fully attribute it all to culture coloration as other factors are always at play, but just been something I’ve kept duly noted for a while.

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