Finishing my abstract

This week I worked on and finished my abstract for the student conference. I am going to be finding the different microbes on a creosote plant, one grown from an irrigation drip system and one grown naturally in the desert. We happen to have a Larrea tridentata plant here on campus so I decided to grab some leaves and inoculate a TSA to see what grows. I am hoping to start isolating the microbes I find and start inoculations for a naturally grown plant next week. In my other research project I am waiting for some endophytic rich grass seeds to come from New York so I can start to plant soy beans and. I have decided that I will plant as many variables that I can control to get a more conclusive result for the experiment. 

The next step

With most of my time in the lab this week I finished researching my project and came up with a decisive plan on how I will conduct the different phases of the experiment. I completed an excel spread sheet of the test I did on my unknown and my unknown contaminant for quality purposes. My unknown is Staphylococcus aerus. In the lactose test my unknown showed positive for fermentation and the gas carbon dioxide.I am hoping to finish getting the materials I need to conduct the plant microbiome experiment and find out if they endophytes can make plants thermo-resistance.

Almost done with my unkown, ready to start the research project.

This week I made great progress in my unknown and unknown contaminant research. I concluded the msa test on both my microbe and the contaminant and found that they are different bacteria. I did notice that the unknown given to me fully turned the msa agar to yellow showing that it was positive for acid. However the unknown contaminant did not have the same results and did not show signs of acid fermentation. My unknown is defiantly Staphylococcus aureus and needs no further testing. The contaminant found on my original streak plate showed negative for acid in the msa test and needs to go through a tsi and lactose test. I believe the bacteria that contaminated my sample is Staphylococcus epidermidis but I will not know for sure until next week. As for my research project I have found the materials needed to complete the research and I hope to start setting up the experiment next week. Getting a control group of seeds planted is my first step then adding endophytes in different amounts will to each plant will show how the plant microbiome can have an effect on the overall health and production of the plant.

Week 2: Having some contamination.

In week one I made a culture of my first unknown microbe. There were however contaminants in the culture so I decided to test both bacteria from the culture in a gram stain. Both microbes stained positive and were both staphylococci in morphology. I did not have enough of the microbe contaminating my sample so am going to incubate a new TSB for this bacteria re-plate it on an augur trying to isolate the growth of microbe so I can get more precise testing done with out having both bacteria contaminate one another. When I come back next week I will be then conclude test on both the unknown microbe and the contaminant in my samples with definitive answers. I also hope to get results from the glucose fermentation test I started today to further test the microbes in my sample. 

Week 1 first day.

This is my week one blog post and for my first day as an intern I did lawn and split cultures of an unknown microbe. When I return to the lab on Tue. I will have a nice culture of my unknown and will begin the next process in Koch's postulates. I put the microbe in the incubator after using proper technique and do not expect any contaminants in my sample. The next step was to start researching microbiomes and how we could go about testing the concepts that through microbiomes one could make a plant more fruitful and healthy.

Works cited

Martin Grube . 2013. The plant microbiome and it's importance on plant and human health. Frontiers (M.     Schloter) [Internet]. [2013 November 8, cited 2014 Febuary 3] **Journal Info**. Available from:                 http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/SpecialTopicDetail.aspx?name=plant-                     microbe_interaction&st=1543&sname=The_plant_microbiome_and_its_i