Lab Summary for 9/17/12

Discussed and viewed sexual and asexual life cycles videos for the protist - Phytophthora infestans, the Chytrid - Olpidium brassicae (causal organism of the club root pathogen), Saprolegnia, and  the Blastocladiales Allomyces (a really cool fungus).  

Baiting for Allomyces sp. from the soil surrounding the pecan pit in front of the Peterson building, utilizing non-viable heep seeds as the bait.  Observed zoospores (mitospores) from the initial microscopic examination.  Plated some of the water on YpSs agar plates.  Additionally, removed the heep seeds from the baited jar and placed the seeds into a small plastic petri dish with DS solution, parafilmed the petri dish and incubated for 48 hours at room temperature.  The initial YpSs agar plates were contaminated with bacteria and did not result in any fungal growth.  The heep seeds resulted in the amazing recovery of an Allomyces sp.  It was so incredible to see the zoospores (mitospores),  mitosporangia, meisporangia and rhizoids (photos below).  Transferred the fungal growth surrounding the heep seeds to YpSs agar plates in an attempt to recover a pure culture (update to come).  In addition, I took a video of the zoospores swimming in the petri dish (hopefully will be able to edit and post in the future).

Microscopic views of an Allomyces sp. 

A V8 agar plug of Phytophthora floating in soil water  was viewed microscopically to visualize the zoospores produced by the sporangia. I prepared a squash mount with a small piece of the agar plug stained with acid fucsion and observed via microscopic examination, coenocytic hypae, sporangia with zoospores present and  chlymadospores.

Briefly discussed Neurospora crasse crosses (mating) and will start those experiments next week (9/26/12).