[Drosophila] Re: culture problems

[dr julien colomb]

Hey Mark,

you are using a very complicated food, why not using standard corn meal 
medium?

The fact that the adults die and not the larvae is peculiar.
I never had that before, but it reminds me of a story with pesticides.
In my former labs, we had to change the corn because the one we used was 
not produced anymore. We took bio-cornmeal and flies started to die: the 
corn was not insecticides free... Maybe you have such a problem?

We also have problems sometimes with the food, but then the larvae are 
dying not the adults. It normally disappear after some time without us 
knowing why the problem was there...

I hope it can help.
Greetings from germany,
julien colomb
> I'm still trying to solve my problems with cultures
> that do poorly.  I suspect my problem with sporadic
> poor cultures is due to excessive carbon dioxide
> accumulation, and I'm trying to solve that problem
> by cutting back on the medium.  They never eat it
> all, so I've cut the amount in half.  I'll know
> in a couple of weeks whether that works.
>
> I think the problem with entire batches of poor
> performers has a separate cause.  I just had three
> consecutive daily batches that turned out poorly.
> I suspect the hot weather may have caused this.
> We had a hot spell a couple weeks ago, and this
> may have caused the bad batches.  I don't have
> air conditioning.  I think there may be a critical
> period when a new culture is extra sensitive to heat.
> Does that sound like a reasonable theory?  When would
> a culture be most sensitive to heat?  We haven't
> had any days above 100 around here, but it does go
> above 90 on a hot day.  Another hot spell is
> predicted to begin in a day or two.
>