P. Tampanensis: contaminated or good? so confused.

[Norsern_vind]

Back story:

Tampanensis MS syringe onto malt agar (pasty recipe). For some reason, these weird blotchy brown spots ALWAYS develop (have used 2 syringes from the same vendor and this always happens on agar).



Everyone that sees these photos automatically screams contams. But then when they see the photos of the jars, they say it looks good or that they are perfect, so I'm getting a bit confused.


The jars were nocked in an SAB using agar that looked very similar to the photos below.

This is the first time dealing with Tamps, so could someone help out and give advice on what's going on, or at the very least confirm if the jars are contaminated? Thanks guys and girls.

 

[TGO]

If there is a green color anywhere in your jars, it is contaminated with Trich and must be tossed out. From the pics, it looks like there is some "mean green", unfortunately. My eyes are not the best so I may be misinterpreting the pics but it does appear worrisome...

Truffle producing species behave the same way as cubes when it comes to colonizing the substrate in the jars. The only difference is that you don't open the jar(s) for 6 months or so...

Edit: Could you clarify what we are looking at in each pic, especially the first ones? If your agar was contaminated, it is almost certain that your jars will contaminate too, IME...

 

[dreamer042]

This looks almost like your agar itself is green?

What is the blue thing in the middle of the jar in the first photo?

Your colonizing jars do look fine.

 

[Sakkadelic]

What is the blue thing in the middle of the jar in the first photo?

that's the bottom of the jar with a piece of agar cut out, maybe something blue sticking on the outside.. it does look very confusing i didn't see this when i first saw the post but now i saw it
OP i have no experience with agar but it looks like there is mold(the grey/green spots) in your plates and the way you are making your transfers taking big chunks of agar mycelium and mold is wrong, you're supposed to take a small piece of mycelium free from any visible contamination...

 

[Norsern_vind]

Sorry for the confusion guys.

I used pasty's tek on shroomery, which recommended using dark food coloring for easy identification of contamination; that's where the green is coming from.

I'll go down the list of photos and explain

 

[Norsern_vind]

Lthe first 3 photos are the agar. The blue at the bottom of the jar is just labeling tape from the exterior. Basic ME agar recipe with added green food coloring.

Yes, i didn't practice proper sectoring, mostly because i had no idea what to sector or make of what's going on in the jars. Plus I'm a noon haha.


The photos of the jars with sclerotia were agar2grain transfers from July, inoculated with agar that looks extremely similar to the photos.


The final photo, where the top of the grains is colonizing, is of a most recent transfer, again with agar that looks very similar to the photos shown above.


I have noticed that, for whatever reason, all the species I've used this agar recipe with seem to suck the color out of the agar, leaving the agar to be a brown, translucent color. While not clustered during the initial stages like the tamps, it has happened with B+,Escondido and Corumba after transferring to grain. I'm wondering if those clusters could be sue to the mycelium sucking out the food coloring?