Not until Spring, 2004. When we made home-made media without blood
enrichment in our medical microbiology laboratory we used to put an
outdate of six months on them. You can try subbing organisms on to them
periodically to see if they still work. Even if you wrap them in
plastic, the plastic will breathe and the plates will end up getting
dried out.
How are you keeping the organisms alive? Are you planning on using this
media? It will work for awhile, but you'll seriously need to consider
freezing at -70 Degrees F (or minimally at -20 degrees F but that
doesn't work that well), or subbing weekly to media. At about the six
month mark you'll probably be making a new batch of media to sub onto.
Why not make some slants? Those will store your subs better. What
organisms are you saving?
I'm sure other people on the group will have ideas also.
Judy Dilworth, M.T. (ASCP)
Microbiology
Sara Caldwell wrote:
>> We poured too many plates for microbiology this term. We want to keep
> the cultures we have alive till spring of 2004 when the class is next
> taught. How long will the following refrigerated un-inoculated plates
> keep? Brain Heart Infusion, MacConkey, Nutrient, and Tripticase Soy
> Agar plates?
