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Raising from Spores - Zero Tech Method

I've been looking for a way to rear physarum from spores without resorting to bacterial lawns and needing autoclaves etc.

I've only done a couple of trials but this method seems to work ok, it does require a bit of patience.

I used petri dishes and filter paper but any container and a bit of tissue should work.

The idea is to let the food go off producing bacteria for the amoebal phase to feed off then slowly dry them out so they get persuaded to form plasmodia.

Your spores need to be a few weeks old and well dried. If you don't know how to raise spores from physarum, just leave one in the light with no food for a week or so. Once it starts to bunch up and go dark, take the lid off and let it dry.

Put a piece of absorbent paper in a container and wet it with tap water - enough to leave a visible film of water over the paper.

Sprinkle on a few physarum spores and a pinch of oats - not sterilised, not cooked, just rolled oats.

Leave everything in the dark and forget about it.

After two weeks it should look awful, the oats will have broken down into a horrible mess and you will have pin mold and other delights growing.  Add a few more oats ( not many ), dampen a little if needed.

After another week, loosen the lid - if you're using a vented petri it may dry enough anyway. You want the paper slowly dry until it's just damp. Leave it a few more days slightly damp.

Checking with a microscope at x30 or a 10x hand lens should show a few tiny spots of yellow mucous - as the oats will be discoloured and gooey they will be hard to spot but you're looking for them on the paper close to oats. When you find one, give it a single oat flake and a drop of water, leave them around 2 days and they should move over to the oat. Transplant them to fresh paper and use oats to coax them away from the festering remnants of the original substrate.

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