February 12, C. cinereus

I worked with Courtney this time, and we spent time transferring plates (the first thing I did way back in October).  It was a good review of lab skills, especially involving contamination!  I had to remember not to open the pipette outside of the hood or let my hand pass over open containers (even if it is gloved and sprayed with alcohol).
I also made observations for the DoE on lighting regimes.  Here are some of the things I saw:

LIGHT SET
All 8 sets are fruiting
5 are in the beginning stages of fruiting
1 in the medium stage
1 in the middle/end stage, not quite ready for harvest
all 8 blocks fully colonized

DARK SET
All 8 sets are fruiting
Five are still in the early stages of fruiting
Two in the middle stages of fruiting
One nearly ready to be harvested

Next week the mushrooms should be ready to harvest.  Then I'll be able to weigh them for my data and write the rest of my DoE.

For my final experiment, I think I'm going to simplify my experiment by just comparing the antimicrobial effects of two mushrooms for the mold Aspergiillus niger.  One of these mushrooms for sure will be oyster mushrooms as we have a lot of them coming from Sarah's experiments for the self-growing mushroom product she is helping to develop.  The other mushroom might be one called Coprinus cinereus, also called the gray shag.  It is an edible mushroom.  This mushrooms short life cycle (two weeks in a lab) and easy cultivation makes it a useful organism to study and analyze genetics and molecular studies.  It has also been proven that this mushroom has antimicrobial properties against A. niger.

C. cinereus before spores are released.

C. cinereus after spores are released.