March 12, Inoculation Day

Today, I spent most of the time inoculating grain bags with the mushrooms for the experiment with different oyster species.  Sadly, we are not going to be able to use Pleurotus djamor because the mushroom did not spawn enough on the plate.  You can see this on the picture below.  The very left plate is the normal Pleurotus ostreatus that we have been using for the other experiments.  In the middle is Pleurotus citrinopileatus which did not spread as much as P. ostreatus but enough for us to continue the experiment. The very right plate is P. djamor which clearly did not grow on the plate.

Inoculating the grain bags was another good review of aseptic techniques.  Furthermore, since I had only inoculated grain bags with Courtney before, it was a good experience to be doing it with Sarah.  I was able to see more ways of handling contamination.  This is good for me because it allows me to pick and choose methods that work best for me.

Over break, I am to finish the conclusion for the light vs. dark experiment.  The average of the total wet weight (the weight from the first flush added to the second flush) was greater for the light set than the dark set, not as we had predicted.  For both sets, the second flush yielded smaller oysters.  I don't believe much error came from contamination, as only three blocks were contaminated and two of those were from the light set.

March 5, Bio-future!

Today, I got to sit in on a meeting with Courtney for the Bio-future group at Ecovative.  This is just a small group of people working on projects that are not meant to be developed into products in the near future, but for further down the road.  The purpose of the meeting was for a few members part of this group to share what they were working on.  It was difficult to completely understand everything discussed, but as someone told me at the meeting, it only matters that I understood 10% of the material.  So long as I learn something new.  Among the topics included creating a new material for ice packs, something about a car engine, crystallization in the mushroom, and strength of mycelium blocks.

The project with the different oyster mushroom species didn't need any work this week.  We just let the plates containing the mushrooms grow, so that we can use them to innoculate grain bags next week.
I have been researching other mushrooms to use for the antibacterial experiment I want to do.  The three I will pick from are Hericium erinacus (Lion's Mane, Bearded Tooth Mushroom), Ganoderma lucidem (Lingzhi Mushroom), and Trametes versicolor (Turkey Tail).  All three have really amazing healing properties.

The Lingzhi mushroom has been traditionally used in Chinese medicine.  It has anti-tumor and immunotherapeutic (modifying an immune response--whether by making it stronger, restraining it, or instigating it--to treat a disease) properties.  I think this mushroom looks disgusting, but it is healthy!
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ganoderma_lucidum_01.jpg

This is the Turkey Tail mushroom.  Its very fitting.  This mushroom contains something called Polysaccharide K (PSK) which can boost the immune system and be used to treat cancer.  PSK has shown to be beneficial in treating gastric, esophaegal, colorectal, breast and lung cancer.  This too is a Chinese medicinal mushroom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stumpfungus.jpg

I think this mushroom is a winner for my project.  The Lion's Mane (also called the Bearded Tooth) mushroom has crazy properties!  It is also a traditional Chinese medicine and has been proven to have antioxidant effects.  It can also be used to treat gastric ulcers.  Currently their are lots of studies going into the anti-dimentia compounds of this specific mushroom.  This mushroom has been determined to stimulate animal nerve cell growth.  In my research I found a paper that experimented with this on rats.  Here is a link if you are interested: http://www.dl.begellhouse.com/pt/journals/708ae68d64b17c52,03ea8c440cfbb276,23c2fd3840f4e0c9.html
This is also an edible mushroom.  I believe I've eaten myself at some point.  I've known it as the Monkey Head mushroom.  Pretty yummy :)

http://www.mykoweb.com/CAF/photos/Hericium_erinaceus(nw-01).jpg

February 26, Solo Work!

I am still figuring out specific but important technicalities to my experiment.  As part of my method and procedure, I am going to dehydrate the fruiting body.  However with C. cinereus, once they release their spores, they turn goop and obviously it becomes impossible to dehydrate them.  So I am looking for another species of mushroom I can test on.
Despite still figuring out the small details, I was able to begin collecting A. niger, the black mold, by placing agar plates in contaminated areas.  This might not be the most efficient way of getting the mold, but it is convenient with the tools we have.  The plates will not be purely A. niger.  While working on this project, I am also starting another experiment with Sarah for her oyster mushroom kit experiments.  This time, we are looking into different species of oyster mushrooms and seeing how they can grow on the grow-it-yourself kits.  Along with Pleurotus ostreatus I will be testing Pleurotus djamor,and Pleurotus citrinopileatus.  They are both edible mushrooms.

Pleurotus citrinopileatus

Pleurotus djamor

                                   

Other than discussing upcoming projects, I spent the majority of this time helping prepare substrate for Caroline's straw experiment.  I was let loose to make the substrate by myself and boy was it intimidating at first.  I made substrate once or twice with Courtney and Sarah, so I had to recall the procedure.  It was a good thing that making substrate does not require aseptic techniques.  Straw was everywhere but after making a bag or two though, I got the hang of it and now I can confidently make substrate bags myself.