For my experiments I need to incubate bacteria on agar plates for multiple weeks, but I do not know how to prevent the agar plates from drying out.
Besides incubating the plates in inverted position, you can try different options:
Increase the relative humidity of the incubator, if possible.
If it's possible to put a soaked cotton in a wide shallow container (a wider petri dish or even a baker) then put your plates, it may works.
Some may recommend you to seal the plates, but I don't. You have to search the literature regarding your bacteria. If you found nothing useful (most likely you will find some), then you have to guess the most convenient method for your bacterial species so that growth is not affected drastically, especially when it comes to aeration & oxygen requirements.
You can pour your plate more than half with agar media, almost 3/4. this is one of the easiest method.
Also you can seal your plates with parafilm, but it depends on your experiments because some bacterial VOCs may affects the growth.
Best,
I always liked to use some sort of container, a jar (I used anaerobic jars) that you could seal off. There should be sufficient headspace for oxygen to permit reasonable growth and it will maintain high humidity inside the container so you don't get desiccation of the plates.
If the incubator you are using can be kept essentially shut and does not circulate the air, then adding a small container of water would also be fine. But when the incubator has a circulating fan is when the plates dry too much.
Obviously if you have an incubator where you can control humidity that would be ideal, but most of us don't.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Physical Sciences
- Materials Science
- Plating