101

[Jagger]

Forums 101. LOL

So what are the thoughts on liquid culture compared to multi-spore inoculation in a sterilized medium?

Are there any thoughts on this compared to just sterilization of agar cultures and substrate (flour and verm) with H2O2 in a blender? Thus to be directly cased and the usual waiting period?

[occidentalis]

If you are working with very clean inoculum, in very clean conditions, LC is great.

However for most home growers it just leads to contamination. Give it a shot if you're brave/confident/well equipped.

BTW, for purposes of searchability, it is generally considered good etiquette to make some effort to describe the subject of your post in the title.

Edited December 11, 2006 by creach

[Jagger]

BTW, for purposes of searchability, it is generally considered good etiquette to make some effort to describe the subject of your post in the title.

Sorry mate. Am still learning. Forgive the virgins.

[Hyphal]

If you are working with very clean inoculum, in very clean conditions, LC is great.

However for most home growers it just leads to contamination. Give it a shot if you're brave/confident/well equipped.

I couldnt agree less - LC is easy as, it requires nothing more than a clean empty jar, some nutrient (honey or maple syrup), a pot, a spore print and half a brain.

http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.p.../0/fpart/1/vc/1

But it doesnt offer anything better for you than a multi spore innoculation, other than you get a lot more innoculum to work with, and it colonises your spawn quicker - after, of course, the waiting time for the LC to colonise.

However, Using LC's to clone with, is where it really begins to get interesting.... :drool:

[watertrade]

I've never had much luck with Liquid.

I always encounter the same two probs

1: the liquid innoculum grows on the surface of the liquid making it hard to work with.

2: the liquid in the syringe continues to grow and blocks the syringe. if I store it for more than a few days

I'm probably doing sometyhing wrong

[Hyphal]

Do you agitate it regularly while its colonising to break up the mycelium?

LC's should remain in the vessel, once colonised, and in the fridge. Only aspirate innoculum into a needle when you are ready to shoot some jars.

Hope that helps because i would never ever even think about NOT using one now...

[Lono]

Just embarked on my first foray into LC so far without much success.

to give you the background I had a very old fragment of a print to work with (3 years old), which was stored okay in terms of kepping the spores viable but with very little regard for contamination

I made up 8 jars, nearly three weeks ago and so far I've lost 4 to contams seen mycelial growth in 2 and nothing in the other 2. In all a pretty good result but, my advice would be unless you have a super sterile environment to work in, don't bother with liquid. I mean you don't have to be so sterile that its impossible but I definitely think you have to be more careful with liquid than you do with agar or ordinary subtrate innoculation making it kind of a pain in the arse.

Now, there will always be horses for courses though

I came across a very sort of post modern office building within spitting distance of martin place in sydney the other day with an, open fronted, 30m square artium, all landscaped with cypress mulch, three storeys of ferns under dim growlights with overhead watering systems providing twice daily misting. Obviously all this being inside the guts of a buiilding means its a nice cool 20 to 25 degrees all year round. Its like a supermacro-micro-climate!!!

As soon as I get the motivation and the fixins for a wood lover culture I plan to splash a bit of LC round there and await the results. Other than this scenario I can't think of many other resons to use the stuff

[spiders]

contams spread right through an entire liquid innoculant in no time - all it takes it one and your fucked. Whereas on agar you can just cut that section out, place the rest on h202 and clean it up.

[Hyphal]

Now, there will always be horses for courses though

Amen. I seriously cant imagine NOT using it, and I have never worked with agar (just dont have the spare time, space, resources or energy). So it does baffle me that some people hate it.

I dont use a glove box, I do all work in the kitchen and I have never had a contammed LC out of at least 20 individual attempts using the exact same process as in the link I posted above.

I once started an LC with a 3 year old print and it took off without a drama.

You can use many more ml's of LC to innoculate your jars, increasing colonisation times dramatically, without wasting spores.

You can easily clone using a core sample of your favourite fruit and squirting that into a sterile LC.

You dont have to have any special equipment or even a pressure cooker for that matter to start an LC, making it a very very cheap and effective way to turn what could be a single spore print into Litres of viable culture.

But, as you said, horses for courses!

[watertrade]

I was trying to use Liquid as a way to store a culture in a syringe. I would like invest a little more time in liquid. I work with agar 95 % of the time now and would like options.

I guess the trick to storing liquid cultures is only having a limited amount of nutrients so the myceium only grows so much.

Any ideas?

[Lono]

Spores will live, practically forever in a syringe, with only the most minor risk of contamination.

Mind if I ask why you're so keen on liquid myc as opposed to straight spores?

Just trying to work out if there are any applications for the tek I might not have thought of

Edited December 13, 2006 by Lono