Subject: Exploring fungus culture

From: [email-masked] (EDThielk2)
Date: 28 Oct 1994 21:39:17 -0700

Hi,
 
I am a high school biology teacher, and an amateur field mycologist.  
Every year I have students collect mushrooms, make observations on local 
diversity (Olympic Peninsula, Washington) and view spores under the 
microscope, etc.  
 
This year, while sampling the campus for bacteria, and growing some 
cultures, several agar plates sprouted fungus.
 
My question is - if I innoculate nutrient agar with spores from  
mushrooms collected in the field, could I expect some hyphae to grow?   I 
can't recall at the moment the constituents of the agar I am using up at 
school.  I believe that it is a yeast or beef extract with nutrient 
gelatin added.
 
All I really want at this point if for my students to see another stage 
in the cycle of the mushrooms they see in their yards and the forests 
around here. If the answer to this question is too complicated to do 
email, perhaps a reference would work.   
 
Thanks
 
David Thielk
Port Townsend, WA 
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Stamets 1)
Date: 29 Oct 1994 13:01:01 -0400

In article <[email-masked]>,
[email-masked] (EDThielk2) writes:

If the spores are fresh, and for instance, if they are from Oyster
mushrooms,
the probability of your getting Oyster mushroom cultures is very high. If
1/20 gram of gentamycin sulfate is added to your agar media, most bacteria
will be inhibited. Always leave several plates uninoculated so that you 
can determine if any contamination is intrinsic to the media prep. process
or the transfer technique. In observing mycologists doing isolates over
the past twenty years, I have been amazed at how many try to do
isolations without a laminar flow hood, in rooms where dozens of
sporulating
mushrooms are pumping germ plasm into the air. This circumstance, I 
believe, has led to dozens of mislabelled cultures which are then passed
to others with some air of certainty. 

Good luck. And be prepared surprises. 

paul stamets