I am working on Fusarium and want to store fungal agar plates in refrigerator (for 30-45 days). Sometimes I am in the middle of the experiment which requires inoculum and I don't have fresh plates or any experiment comes which is not pre planned. Can I use the stored one? Is storing at 4 degrees going to affect its virulence or pathogenicity? How long can I store it?
@ Manika, I think you can store for 4-6 weeks. So, you may use stored ones maximum up to 6 weeks old.
You may store the cultures upto six months but virulence is affected with sub-culturing not by storage.
Thank you everyone for the reply. Can you please share any research article with these specifications? It would be really helpful.
As others have mentioned, it not how long a plate has been stored, it's how many times the culture is transferred that affect virulence.
Webb, K., Holman, G., Duke, S., Greene, S. and McCluskey, K. (2018), Frozen fungi: cryogenic storage is an effective method to store Fusarium cultures for the long-term. Ann Appl Biol, 173: 133-140. https://doi.org/10.1111/aab.12442
If you don't have access to cryogenic storage:
Windels, C., Burnes, P., & Kommedahl, T. (1993). Fusarium Species Stored on Silica Gel and Soil for Ten Years. Mycologia, 85(1), 21-23. doi:10.2307/3760472
I think 0-6 month for degree will be ok store your fungi but if you want keep for a year and above -80..
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