Part of my project will require me to try and culture fungi from soft furnishings. I have considered using sellotape but this will collect a lot of material as well. Does anyone have any suggestions of better methods?
Simply rub the sterilized wet cotton and dilute it into the sterilized water or broth and finally with the help of dilution plate technique you can make it pure culture.
Hello Jennifer,
you can either scrub some of the material using a cotton swab or even a fine scalper and collect them in sterilized water as Rajender suggested or, if you have the liberty, you can cut small pieces and vortex them in tube containing sterile distilled water and perform consecutive dilution. Both methods have their limitations concerning the amount of fungal spores you can collect and the ecological diversity representation.
Best of luck,
Vasileios
It is also possible to use plain old sticky tape. a bit fiddly but press on to the surface and then cut up and plate directly onto the selective medium of your choice.
A vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter can also be used and the collected dust diluted and sieved.
hope this helps cheers
Richard
Thank you Richard. Yes, I have used sellotape to collect spores before but since the surface will be fabric, I was concerned that I might pick up most of the furnishings as well! As it turns out, it looks like I won't be able to take the samples personally anyway, but I do have access to vacuum samples which I will sieve, as you say.
Thank you all.
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