Iron Chef Ingredient: organic and conventional strawberries

Questions

What kind and how much pesticides are on straw?Are the pesticides on the strawberries or are they included in the soil?

Do pesticides have any effect on the cheek cells? 

Will the molds look different on the different types of strawberries?

Will the type of strawberry affect the type of mold that grows? Do pesticides effect mold?

Purpose

     The purpose of this lab was to find out if strawberries that are organic have more botrytis cinerea on them than conventional strawberries and to infer the cause of these results.

Hypothesis

     If a lab technician swabs an organic and a conventional strawberry and transfers it into in an agar plate and then an incubator then the organic strawberries’ agar plate will grow more botrytis cinerea than the agar plate with the swab from the conventional strawberry because the organic strawberries are not allowed to use pesticides to prevent mold.

Procedure

1. Make Regular Agar and pour into 6 petri dishes.
2. Make PDA and pour into 6 different petri dishes
3. Refrigerate for 3 days
4. Swab the outside of organic strawberries and place into 2 PDA dishes and 2 RA dishes 
5. Swab the outside of conventional strawberries and place into 2 PDA and 2 RA dishes 
6. Leave 2 RA dishes and 2 PDA dishes alone as a control
7. Put all 12 dishes into an incubator 
8. After 1 week of incubation Take out 1 dish from each group (conventional pda, control pda, organic pda, conventional ra, control ra, organic ra) and use the ocular loop to scrape off a sample from each dish.
9. Transfer these samples to individual slides and cover them with slide covers.
10. Place the slides under microscopes and examine them for botrytis cinerea.
11. If it is a positive id then mark it as such in the data table.
12. Repeat steps 7-10 at 1.5 weeks for the other set of petri dish samples.
13. Repeat steps 7-10 again at 2 weeks for the first set of petri dishes.
14. Repeat steps 7-10 again at 2.5 weeks for the second set of petri dishes

Materials

• 1 box of strawberries (organic)

• 1 box of strawberries (non organic)

• Potato Dextrose agar

• Basic Agar 

• Petri dishes

• Microscope

• Slides

• bvSlide covers

• Swab

• Iodine (staining as needed)

• Incubator

• Ocular Loop

Skills Acquired

• Fungus identification

• Microscope usage

• Incubator usage

• Agar plate making

Works Cited

Citation

Ellis, David, Dr. "Slide Culture Preparations." Mycology Online. N.p., 15 May 2001.

Web. 17 Oct. 2016.

"Preparing Slides of Microorganisms." Preparing Slides of Microorganisms.

N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.

"Viticulture & Enology." Microscopy for the Winery.

N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.

Kung'u, Jackson. "Home." Mold Bacteria Consulting Services.

N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.

Knight, Andrew. "The Relationship Between Sociodemographics and Concern About Food Safety Issues." The Journal of Consumer Affairs 38.1 (2004): 107-20. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.

            World-Class Support For Science & Mat. Techniques for Studying Bacteria       and Fungi (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 3 Oct. 2016.