1. Dirty spores that I have can germinate/ grow with contams and then I can cut a "clean" good growth part put in in another plate have it grow there, then innoculate grain etc
2. A cluster of elms I found wild, I can now clone and possibly fruit indoors.
3. Mad Scientist sensations I get out of amateur agar work

only a few I am sure there are more....

M(Maltextract)
Y(Yeast)
A(Agar)

For one liter agar medium:

15-20 g agar agar
20 g maltextract
2 g nutritional yeast

[This message has been edited by Anno (edited November 25, 1999).]

[This message has been edited by Anno (edited November 25, 1999).]

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Wer'e off to see the Wizard..because..because...because>>>>>>>(*)

The Lizard,

good luck

BiO.

20g agar agar
20g malt sugar (light tan)
2g nutritional yeast
2g wheat flour (extra fine)

ShroomGod

The first reason: strain isolation is a cool thing that I want to try sometime in the near future (I have all the equip, just need to get off my lazy butt and do it). What you do is make some plates of agar, then innoculate them with spores. Check the plates to see which one shows the best rhizomorphic (strandy) mycelial growth. Each plate will most likely show signs of sectoring (different parts of the plate growing in differnt ways (rhizomorphic (strandy) and tomentose (cottony), slow growth and fast growth) Cut a section from the best looking section (fastest growth and most strandy, strandy = better possibility of fruiting) and transfer to another agar plate. Let the culture grow a couple of days and then if that culture sectors again, take a chunk of mycelium from the most promising and repeat until no sectoring is apparent. You now have a pure strain of mycelium that has strong growth potential. You then use this mycelium as innoculant for standard teks.

This brings me to the next reason why people use agar: Rapid colonization.

When you innoculate agar and let the culture grow out you are essentially skipping a step in the traditional PF et al style of innoculating. In just about any (all?) TEKs, where you would normally add a spore solution (1-5ccs), you now substitute spores for a chunk of agar. Since the agar already has pre incubated spores, your jars should colonize in a matter of days or upto a week. If you always have some agar with good mycelium handy and you want to make some shrooms, you now only have to wait 2 week before you can expect your first flush, rather than a a month+.

This also helps reduce on contaminants. In a traditional setup you have to wait for the spores to incubate. While this is happening contaminants have a much better chance to take hold than the spores do, especially considering the amount of time incubation of spores takes. However if you use a pure mycelial strain from agar your mycelium will immediatly start to take charge and easily beats out contams. Since you isolated a robust and thriving strain of mycelium the odds are even better that you won't lose a jar to contams.

Hope this sheds some light as to why agar (even liquid mycelium is good, though strain isolation isn't an option, so you'll have to live with what you get...But nature does that all the time, so it's not paramount or even necessary to have a "pure" strain) is a superior technique (this is also why most (all?) major mushroom growing facilities use agar or some form of culturing, although it probably is agar in their mushroom production.

:P

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***SyKoDelyK***

The Lizard,