Maitake Isolates so CUTE I had to SHARE~
Hello my fellow agar and mycology enthusiasts!! First of all, you. Yes, YOU with the eyes and the face. YOU who are reading this - you're friggin awesome and thanks for being a fellow agar nerd.
Second, lookit. THEY'RE SO CUTE! 😇 I had to share because they look pretty, and I'm so glad we have this community. I feel my S.O. lacks the enthusiasm that some of you fine folk are likely to have~
......Not much I could do about the condensation, sucks I know. I really wish the second dish had been the dry one.
These are isolate transfers from LME to cleaning plates. I received some Maitake (Grifola frondosa, aka "Hen of the Woods) liquid culture from a company who-shall-not-be-named. Seemed like no matter what I did, the bags I injected with that liquid culture ended up getting bacterial contamination.
Long story short, through my tests and experiments, I happened to identify a clean leading edge on an LME plate and transferred a couple wedges over to these cleaning plates in hopes of getting a solid isolate. The endeavor appears to have been successful, so now I have some clean genetics I can store and make my own liquid culture with!
What is a cleaning plate you might ask? Why is the agar black and filled with debris you might ask? Excellent questions.
I add a pinch of my substrate materials to the agar mix and the black is activated charcoal. The substrate materials are to provide adequate nutrition and otherwise to "train" the mycelium for my process. Rye grain, wheat bran, wheat straw, coconut coir, worm castings, HWFP powder, oak sawdust powder, nutritional yeast, gypsum, etc. Just a pinch!
There is a fair bit of speculation about the magical properties of activated charcoal. Some allege it reduces bacterial growth. I'll let the experts have their telekinetic mind energy battles over all that. For my purposes here, the black background contrasts against the mycelium making it easier to see and inspect. Activated charcoal + white mycelium = pretty pictures.
It is a "cleaning" plate because it contains hydrogen peroxide. Mushroom mycelium generates it's own peroxides to help it duke it out with competitors, so it will survive while bacteria and mold spores are destroyed or inactivated by the peroxides. The goal was to make 100% sure I removed all possible bacterial hitchhikers