Agar Topic: Transfer Size – How Transfer Size affects Mycelium Growth on Agar.

This is a topic I have been wanting to discuss for a good while, mainly cause its very misunderstood and I think bringing some awareness could benefit the community.

I know this might be controversial to some (same as when i first started with nutrients), but I hope this brings others in the community to experiment with this and reach their own conclusion, that is what is all about.

Brief Intro: The Mycelial Network, as many things in nature, gets stronger as it grows in size (Ceteris Paribus). Just simply cause its a more robust network, able to thrive much easier than a smaller network.

We all know the Old saying “take the smallest transfer cut humanly possible” when doing transfers, we all have seen it time and time again. And I think the misconception here is that it applies to every transfer, while they really meant, when isolating or cleaning up a genetic (and only in those cases).

Once properly isolated and or cleaned up, almost all cultures will have a better transition to their new agar plate, if the transfer size is big enough to maintain a vigorous growth

(we cant forget that the transfer temporarily “weakens” the mycelial network, so the stronger it initially is (we control this through transfer size), the higher chance of that mycelium to properly recover and thrive on its new home.

I have experimented at this point with over 75 diff cultures and I have always reached the same conclusion, larger cut size, has a much higher chance of maintaining a robust mycelial network on the transfer plates vs smaller transfers.

I need to take pics soon, as i never really do small transfers unless isolating, so i can show you guys the huge impact the transfer size (strength of Mycelial Network) has on the type of growth you will get on the new agar plate. The difference is night and day, and i expect it will shock a lot of people. I know some others have probably seen this, but i hope this helps those who are struggling with getting vigorous growth on their plates.

I will dig further into this soon. As there are other angles here (such as if the culture has high or low nutrient affliction) and if that also is impacted by transfer size (high nuts cultures for example, love extra large transfers, and makes sense, they need lots of nutrients to thrive in the firsthand)

I will make a more organized post on this soon but wanted to share this. I think this is as important as identifying the nutrient preference of each culture, if you want to get the best of each one.

So for now and TLDR; Size Does Matter, when it comes to agar : D

Mush Love,
Humble