For those of you considering growing ergot fungi, in particular Claviceps paspali, I recommend that you take a walk outdoors.
Recently, I decided to take a stroll along a country road, where the forest gives way to open meadows, and a small stream passes through. Examining the wild grasses growing there, I soon discovered that a number of the grass seed heads had wild Claviceps pasapli ergot sclerotia growing on them!
Close examination found purple Banana-shaped sclerotia growing where a seed would normally be. They are anywhere from .25 to 1 cm in length, the average being .5 cm. They grow on about 5 different species of grass in this area.
In about an hour of collecting I had a few hundred sclerotia.
Since each sclerotia can be a different "chemo race", one can expect different types of ergot-Lyseric acid and Clavine type alkaloids to be produced by each.
To isolate the Claviceps fungi, it is important to obtain a sterile portion of the sclerotia. Following the technique of Groger, the sclerotia were shaken for 2 minutes in a 50% solution of Propanol, then a 4% Formaldehyde solution, then rinsed 3 times with sterile distilled H2O. Under a microscope, the outer "skin" was cut away with a razor or scapel, and small slices of the inside of the sclerotia taken. These were placed on petrie dishes of Potato-Dextrose Agar, and incubated for 2 weeks at 26 C. Various small round colonies develop, and these can then be transfered to other dishes or test tubes of agar for testing and mutation to high yield alkaloid strains.
(A UV light such as an EPROM eraser or an old Sunlamp is an excellent source of high energy UV to mutate the fungi)