fungi from wild to agar plates????

[dixieh]

Hi all, I want to take about 5 or 6 fungi from the wild and grow them on agar. Does it actually work? Does anyone have any ideas on which ones are the best to grow and any tips for doing so and tokeep them alive. Would it also be possible to find 2 fungi from each of the three main subgroups (ascomycetes, basidomycetes and zygomycete (or do i have this completly wrong!!!!)) that would grow on agar?

Thanks Dixie

[CapAndBracket]

http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/fo...5-post410.html

You may find something useful in this thread.

Cheers J.P.

[dixieh]

Aha thank you very much. How long have you been into your fungi?!

Dixie

[CapAndBracket]

Only around seven years so still very much a novice, i will pull up the dung
thread and give some advice there.

Cheers J.P.

[Ditiola]

Hi Dixie
I have been growing fungi at home off and on for a number of years. I use Oat agar. You just boil up oats, sieve and add agar powder before pouring into Petri dishes; I sometimes add some malt from the brewing shop.

Most of the larger fungi require the culture to be transferred onto a more suitable substrate before they will produce fruiting bodies. Such as wood chips, sawdust, straw etc. Some also need a few days in the fridge to initiate fruiting.

To have much chance of success you will also need the following.

1) A clean air cabinet, I made one at home using respirator filters and an old electric fan from a central heating boiler.
2) A large Pressure cooker. I found an ex-army one that is three times the size of home ones.
3) Somewhere warm like an airing cupboard.

You can cut small pieces of clean tissue from the inside of toadstools within the clean air box and transfer to sterile agar plates without getting any contamination by mould & bacteria spores, these are the scourge of home cultivation and what usually causes failure. Everything needs to be done to totally eliminate any fungi spores or bacteria settling on your sterile medium

Peter

[dixieh]

Hi Peter,

Wow u really know ur stuff. Im thinking about growing trametes versicolour and the honey fungus have u tried growing these before? You mentioned that some of the larger fungi need to be transferred to other media such as woodchip etc,how would i go about doing this? Would I need to place a culture on an actual piece of woodchip and then place on the agar? In mm,what size of tissue would you say works best?

Thanks

Dixie

[Ditiola]

Hi Dixie

I have not grown either. Honey fungus should grow on Sterilised wood chip or Sterilised Sawdust. Put the wood chips in a container that will stand the high temperature (some types of plastic take-away containers are OK), only use containers with push on lids otherwise they may explode under pressure. Sterilise in a pressure cooker for about 45 min to an hour) however it is very difficult to start any wood decomposing fungus directly onto woodchip. (It is like giving a baby a roast beef dinner) You need to start on a sterile agar medium such as Oat Agar and then transfer to the sterilised wood chip when established on the agar. Oyster fungus is quite easy to grow on woodchip, and Spaerobolus will fruit on an oat agar plate and it is good fun to watch it catapult spore balls several metres.

The big problem (and it is a big problem) is: all other fungi love to grow on the agar as well, and the air all around you contains thousands of fungi spores plus bacteria, so if you expose a sterile agar plate to the air many spores will land on the plate and the common mould species will grow much faster that the fungus you are trying to cultivate and will swamp it out.

This is why you need to provide an environment that is free from fungal spores and bacteria before you take of the lid of a sterile agar plate. To do this you will need a clean air box, otherwise you will get very frustrated in your many failed attempts.

Professional units are called Laminar Flow cabinets. They are designed to make sure the filtered air (free of spores etc.) does not flow towards the operator in case they are working with potentially harmful organisms. If you are only working with harmless fungi a simple box can be made where the air flows from back to front.





Here there is an electric fan mounted in the wooden side box. It blows air into the rear chamber causing a positive pressure. This then flows through the filters and out to the front to the box now free from spores etc. You put your Petri dishes under the Perspex lid and can work in a sterile environment. I believe some Dyson vacuum cleaners use Heptar filters that are similar to the ones used in professional units. If I build a new box I will look into these filters as professional Heptar filters are very expensive

Easy clean surfaces are important; I clean all surfaces with Sodium metabisulphide (obtainable from a brew shop) and clean the system by putting a saucer of sodium metabisulphide solution under the fan intake. It gives of sulphur dioxide which is very toxic to fungi and bacteria.

You need to keep everything scrupulously clean and sterilise all cutting tools etc in a flame followed by cooling in alcohol. When cutting tissue from a toadstool cut away all external tissue (inside the clean air box) sterilising the scalpel several times and finally cut a piece of clean tissue from the centre of the cap to put on the agar plate.

Put all agar plates in a clean freshly washed container and smear Vaseline around the container rim to prevent mites from carrying spores into your cultures.

The transfer of the cultures from agar plates to the sterilised woodchip is not quite as critical as the Honey fungus (or Oyster fungus) will grow much better on wood chip than most mould species and is therefore less likely to become over run.

I am sure if you search the internet you will find plenty of useful information.
Good luck

Peter

[dixieh]

I am really looking forward to this now, how long is the life cycle of the oyster fungus or Spaerobolus from spore infection to fruiting on agar? Thank you so much for all your advice, I really really appreicate it and am very grateful. I wont start it till the autumn but will let u know how I get on!

Dixie