Some Ergot, or at least some weird black solid that appears to be alive but not part of the grass where it is located was found. Before the time is up - I.e it dies, etc it would be interesting to attempt to culture this fungus. Looking around the internet, there appears to be a few culture mediums that claim to work - such as this one:

Quote

Make up a culture medium by combining the following ingredients in about
500 milliliters of distilled water in a 2 liter, small-neck flask:

  Sucrose .......................................... 100 grams
  Chick pea meal .................................... 50 grams
  Calcium nitrate ..................................... 1 gram
  Monopotassium phosphate ......................... 0.25 grams
  Magnesium sulphate .............................. 0.25 grams
  Potassium chloride ............................. 0.125 grams
  Ferrous sulphate heptahydrate ................... 8.34 milligrams
  Zinc sulphate heptahydrate ...................... 3.44 milligrams

Add water to make up one liter, adjust pH 4 with ammonia solution and
citric acid. Sterile by autoclaving.

This one seems a bit questionable and a reliable source for a culture medium on ergot seems to be hard to find, plus this one is for what seems to be a liquid culture medium --  Are there any decent culture mediums, that would work especially well for isolation? probably meaning there is a gelling agent, such as agar, in it?

Try potato dextrose agar. It is cheap and very effective for all cultures close. Google will show you how easy it can be to make. This is almost allway the cheap is best culture to make and you get to eat the potato after.

Can other culture feed you after? I think no!

Alway takes from mid upper stream of slant. On top of tube but down a 1/4 of distance. This is optimal culture. Bottom culture is weak and top culture is exposed to environment. Alway use this culture for further cloning in every generation.

I doubt it would change the genetic composition -- if it did, it is probably just as likely that it yields a lower alkaloid content strain, as it is a higher alkaloid content strain.

One thing, however, maybe that they produce more alkaloids while on the plant vs in culture - probably due to altered environment, which alters gene expression, which alters alkaloids, and other things.

I would replace CaNO3 with CaCl, a high nitrate level takes a shit on yields.

One wants high phosphate in spawning media, and very restricted phosphate levels in production phase.

Also, addition of a mixture of biotin and lysine to the production media will apparently dramatically increase levels of alkaloid yield.

I'm working on this same project myself, all I need to do now is aqquire some second hand stuff of my dads to use as a bubble column fermenter and I'l be ready to get started

I have hear this too of Lysine. It is use in bio-tech for organism fermenters. Microbes love Lysine!

It is starting to seem like it maybe Poa annua the ergot is growing on.. which means what? that it is Claviceps purpurea? I don't know.
What other grass might that be? It is rather small, and sticks close to the ground.

-- also 300 grams of grated potatoes were boiled for 30 minutes, allowed to cool, filtered through a sock, 15 grams of agar, and 15 grams of corn syrup (best I had) were added and made into ~ 1 liter solution. This should hopefully work, it seems like PDA is a very rough and approximated culture medium, so this ought to do just fine.  Does the store sell pure dextrose? I've never seen it, and I've looked. Also -- next time I make the agar junk, after filtering it, I'll be sure to let it sit a bit longer -- mine still has a decent amount of white potato like flakes in it. Not that it will cause a problem, just be nice to have a more clear solution.

Adding more pictures just for the hell of it - maybe it will make things more interesting.

Ha its turning into quite a little project.. I guess -- this stuff will also help with isolating that agrobacterium stuff I was trying to earlier.. I don't think the samples I got are/were alive with the bacteria... perhaps it died off? anyways.. different topic.
PS... dragging and dropping the images into a new window makes them easier to see -- but honestly, they're just better off as thumbnails lol

wow, 100 grams of sucrose per liter? that seems like the highest concentration of a sugar for a culture medium I've ever seen -- but I did look into the PDF files you sent me and I remember something about that as well.
Thanks for the great culture medium though - that does seem like a decent mix and I have nearly everything there.

How is it used in slants? It doesn't appear any agar is added... don't slants need to be solid-ish?

Or slices can be taken from sterilised sclerotia and placed on agar to encourage vegetative reproduction.

That is what I am trying to do now, though, I don't think I can really sterilize the sclerotia properly so I am thinking I ought to be able to watch for anything and out what appears to be pure and re-culture it.

I made some agar mixture with some hydrogen peroxide in it -- this kills bacteria and spores that would otherwise be present and only allows mycelium to grow however at a slower rate, but I think this will make things a lot easier. So, assuming there isn't any other mycelium growing on the ergot, it ought to be a snap!

I sprayed them with a dilute solution of peroxide as well, I think that ought to be a bit nicer to them then formalin -- and so maybe it will work out.

Time will tell -- for the sake of growth, on agar and not alkaloid production -- what is the best temperature to keep them at?

Wiki claims ".Favorable temperatures for growth are in the range of 18-30°C" but I this is for them while it is in the wild on a plant, and there isn't a citation -- so I am skeptic of it. However, it is probably just like most fungi/bacteria -- ~80*F ought to do it - I just don't want to over do it.

I sprayed them with a dilute solution of peroxide as well, I think that ought to be a bit nicer to them then formalin -- and so maybe it will work out.

Time will tell -- for the sake of growth, on agar and not alkaloid production -- what is the best temperature to keep them at?

Wiki claims ".Favorable temperatures for growth are in the range of 18-30°C" but I this is for them while it is in the wild on a plant, and there isn't a citation -- so I am skeptic of it. However, it is probably just like most fungi/bacteria -- ~80*F ought to do it - I just don't want to over do it.

Peroxide spray or dip of dilute Hydrogen Peroxide (3% is good) is very known in world of fungus culture for Mycology. In Mycology a example this is frequently completed for using wild culture of fungus for Petri Dish when cloning a samples. I think it is very better then formaldehyde or mercury alternative.

Use near 25C for temperature. Better result.

hxxp://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/12701242

this looks like some useful information...
"The addition of arsenate at levels between one fiftieth and one twentieth the molar concentration of phosphate resulted in increases in alkaloid production up to 100 per cent." I found that the most interesting, but there is a lot of other information on it as well. I am not able to get the pdf to download..