ambigu said:

You would still get variable results because of environmental factors. I think that’s why people often alternate MS grows with clone grows. To see if the desired traits are actually genetic. You could as well skip the whole cloning step, and just do MS grows all the time, but you might stabilise the culture (=decrease heterozygosity) without actually improving the trait you’re looking for, which would be a pity (or even making it worse).

If I wanted to select the best traits, I would try to homogenise (=decrease number of cultures) on Agar as little as possible. Only cleaning up, but no sectoring. That way you have more diversity when selecting a mushroom to make a print, with a higher chance of finding something exceptional.

Removing the Agar step is possible as Rasmodius said. This is something else as removing the cloning step (maybe this was clear already but just in case).

Hopefully this removed a bit of confusion instead of adding to it?

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langten69 said:

This is something I have been reading about recently, pheno hunting and all that

I have heard of sectoring and Im interested in what it means

My current understanding is that sectoring is just different parts of an agar plate that exhibit different forms of growth patterns (plz correct me if Im mistaken)

Thx

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Yes exactly. And sometimes you see different sectors of mycelium on your plates that are not connected together. As I understand it, in the past it was thought that these different sectors were isolates (so all identical genetics), but that’s debunked info, since on agar and even in a fruiting body there are likely different compatible cultures working together.

Anyway, I never do it for the sake of isolation/decreasing variation. I prefer to select based on traits that are expressed in mushrooms instead of agar plates

Belintaf said:

langten69, you got it right. I'm not at the level of comfortably working with technical jargon yet, but they're basically different genetic expressions that form sectors that can be more or less visually distinct.

When starting from MS, it's more obvious due to the presence of different lineages. What always trips me up is the fact that you can pick mycelium that is faster/slower, more/less dense, tomentose/rhizomorphic, more/less organized, and you still won't know the actual result until you put it to fruit.

And another thing that confuses me are the different sectors that express themselves in clones. Where epigenetics, the variability within the clone itself, and small mutations come into play — all of which can shape characteristics within the very same lineage. A tomentose lineage can pop out a rhizomorphic sector while being the same lineage, just expressing itself that way for some reason (contamination, nutrition, environment, etc.).

If I'm wrong on any of this, I'd appreciate it if someone corrected me.

Hugs

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ambigu said:

Yes exactly. And sometimes you see different sectors of mycelium on your plates that are not connected together. As I understand it, in the past it was thought that these different sectors were isolates (so all identical genetics), but that’s debunked info, since on agar and even in a fruiting body there are likely different compatible cultures working together.

Anyway, I never do it for the sake of isolation/decreasing variation. I prefer to select based on traits that are expressed in mushrooms instead of agar plates

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Huskies said:

Gotta say, there might be something more like dog training in this hobby than we are aware of.

Mycelium is opportunistic, and builds its toolkit depending on what is available around it.  At the fruiting stage, all environmental factors will influence how they express themselves.

Mycelium are organic computers that are playing poker.

They have a psychology, and will change their plan on the go.

Let me demonstrate.

Eungella Transfer from an older clone plate, massive sectoring. This was on MEA pre-packaged.

.

I literally used a sterilized tweezer, and picked out one of those ropes at the bottom, and put it on a gnocchi water agar plate.

Way more nutrients in the gnocchi water agar



At first, the mycelium replicated its so far winning strategy of thick rhizo tendrils, deep exploration. It expanded, replicating shape on agar for a while, and then stopped.

The mycelium had received the signal, hey, here is good, this can be our new home.

And from there, it had a slower explosion of more tomentose, lazy, chill, less desperate mycelium symmetrically across the entire group.

This became the stuff I fruited.

It acts rationally. You know this, you've seen the slime molds design a metro system.

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DV8DUG said:

Sectoring doesn't relate to genetics like we once thought. Each mycelial branch doesn't carry different chromosome sets than the other branches. Dikaryotic sectoring refers to the formation of "sectors" or distinct regions within a dikaryotic fungal mycelium where one of the two nuclear types is lost or excluded. This can happen through various mechanisms, often as a result of competitive interactions between the two genetically distinct nuclei, leading to a loss of genetic diversity within that sector. The result is a mycelial network with mixed and then potentially separated regions of the original two parental nuclear types.

I had no idea tomentose mycelium is artistically sensitive.

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thx for shedding light on the science to sectoring

And yeah I imagine the tomentose cultures having a well established met gala to enjoy in their free time with all the abundant nutes and such