I sterilized 22 glass petri dishes, along with a jarful of standard RBF/verm mix and a jarful of pure vermiculite. All contents were placed in a glove box and allowed to cool. Then I placed chunks of the RBF/verm mix into each jar, inoculated with 3 drops spore solution, sprinkled with dry vermiculite, and covered with glass petri lids.
I removed the petri dishes from my glovebox, placed them on a sterilized plastic tray, and put the tray in a black plastic trash bag, which I then set on top of a heating pad with adjustable temp settings. After four days at least five of the dishes have signs of nice, fluffy, mycelial growth.
Once the dishes are fully colonized, which I'm guessing will take between 1 week to 10 days from inoculation, the idea is to see if I can use 1/2 the contents of each dish to inoculate a standard PF jar setup. I'm expecting contam rates to be higher due to the transfer process, but if I can inoculate 44 jars using 5cc spore solution, I can afford to lose a few.
I'll keep you informed from time to time, worst case scenario I've wasted half a syringe and a little bit of effort.
I removed the petri dishes from my glovebox, placed them on a sterilized plastic tray, and put the tray in a black plastic trash bag, which I then set on top of a heating pad with adjustable temp settings. After four days at least five of the dishes have signs of nice, fluffy, mycelial growth.
Once the dishes are fully colonized, which I'm guessing will take between 1 week to 10 days from inoculation, the idea is to see if I can use 1/2 the contents of each dish to inoculate a standard PF jar setup. I'm expecting contam rates to be higher due to the transfer process, but if I can inoculate 44 jars using 5cc spore solution, I can afford to lose a few.
I'll keep you informed from time to time, worst case scenario I've wasted half a syringe and a little bit of effort.