Agar plates are very helpful in mushroom cultivation because you can test cultures for contamination by inoculating them with one drop of a spore syringe/LC syringe before attempting to use the syringe on a grow bag. If the agar plate shows clean mycelium after incubating you are good to go but if it shows other contamination growth it is best not to use the syringe. You can use certain techniques to clean up contaminated mushroom cultures while using agar which makes them necessary. They are also great for propagating cultures and storing them. I leave my agar plates on a shelf in a cold room, they are good for 6-12+ months before the thin agar dries up. For longer storage you should use agar slants: https://youtu.be/MSL9sYez-CM?si=tqwcNmXZyxU67uEN
In the past I have used other ingredients and different brands of agar and that actually caused contamination on the plates without even inoculating them. I must have wasted 100s of agar plates before figuring out it was the ingredients that was causing the problems.
As soon as I started using this recipe in this video, every plate is perfect every time.
Mushroom liquid culture and supplies: https://sporensprout.etsy.com
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Premade agar plates: https://amzn.to/48dqB2w
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If you don’t have a laminar flow hood I recommend making a still air box: https://youtu.be/svUq2OeQNC4?si=DArhtDzRS8Goecsq
Re-usable agar plate tutorial: https://youtu.be/qiAUkAGvxJ8?si=U-4Xzm4RfsmRkTvR
How to use the agar plates to clone mushrooms: https://youtu.be/EARNzNHAzf0?si=UUDpYCMOHr_9pjMN
Join the new mushroom cultivation discord server! https://discord.gg/xY4nFpr3hB
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