After many years of experimentation, success has come to growing Claviceps in submerged culture:
http://www.geocities.com/cpaspali/cpaspali.html
Claviceps is a unique organism, and to grow it submerged culture requires great attention to many parameters, such as strain genetics; media composition; fermentation parameters such as O2 levels, pH, temperature, proper nutrients, etc. Any deviation from the required parameters will result in no or poor growth of mycelium, or no production of ergot alkaloids.
Pictures show a strain of C. pasapli that produces Lysergic acid alpha-hydroxyethylamide as the primary product.
Key to this strains growth, and other C. pasapli strains, is large amounts of O2 in the liquid media available to the fungus. Air is pumped through 0.2 um PTFE filters to ensure sterile supply of O2.
The formation of "synnemata" or sclerotia-like form of the fungus is also a key parameter. Only sclerotia-like mycleium produce alkaloids in useable amounts; i.e. it is entirely possible to obtain large production of vegetative forms of mycelium that produce little or no amounts of alkaloids.
On the up side, by using synthetic rather than organic based media, contamination by orther micro-organisms such as molds, yeasts, and bacteria is reduced to a minimum.
