Liquid Cultures

Liquid cultures (LCs) are the bridge between your agar work and production. A liquid culture record tracks the inoculation vessel — syringe, jar, or bag — from preparation through to use.

Each LC is linked to the agar plate it came from. When you inoculate a production batch of blocks using an LC, the batch inherits the LC as its lineage source, completing the chain from original culture to fruiting block.

Viewing liquid cultures

Navigate to Lab > Liquid Cultures to see a paginated table of all LC records. Each row shows:

• Label — your identifier for the vessel (or a short ID if none was set)
• Vessel Type — the container type
• Volume (ml) — preparation volume
• Source Plate — link to the agar plate the LC was inoculated from
• Generation — inherited from the source plate’s generation
• Status — current state
• Inoculation Date — when the LC was prepared

Click any row to open the LC detail page.

Creating a liquid culture

Click New LC to record a new liquid culture vessel.

Required fields

A new LC starts as Colonizing; you update its status later from the detail page.

Inoculated from (optional)

Inoculated from defaults to No parent — start a new line, for example a purchased syringe. If the LC was inoculated from something in your lab, pick it from the list: your agar plates, cultures and liquid cultures are listed by name with species and generation, contaminated and discarded items are left out, and used-up items stay in under — no longer on hand (picking one shows “Marked used up; you can still start a line from it.”). You can also scan its label to pick it. When the source is a cryo vial that is still active, Mark the vial used up sets it to Depleted (used up) once the LC is saved; if that part fails, one message says the LC was created and the vial wasn’t marked. The New liquid culture from this… action on a plate, culture or LC detail page opens this form with that source already chosen.

Vessel types

A Manager can add the lab’s own vessels under Settings → Enumerables → Liquid culture vessels, and Other… lets you type one in.

Status values

Optional fields

LC detail

The detail page shows:

Basic information

Label, vessel type, volume, media type, inoculation date, generation, status, and timestamps. The vessel shows in words, including your lab’s own.

Status

Managers and Owners change the LC’s status here and click Save status. Contaminated asks what you saw; your contamination setting (Settings > Configuration > Lifecycle, under Lab items) then either flags the LC and keeps it for watching, or ends it. Either way a contamination badge shows and Make from this liquid culture is replaced by a note to start from a clean item. A Used LC shows “Marked used up; you can still start a line from it.” and still offers it. Bringing a used, contaminated or discarded LC back counts toward your plan’s active lab items; if you are at the limit, the page says so.

Source

The plate, culture or liquid culture it was inoculated from, by name, species, strain and generation, when it has one. Click it to open that item, where you can trace back through the full ancestry. If it can’t be loaded (for example it was deleted), its short ID shows instead with a note.

Visual notes

Any free-text observations recorded at creation time. Visual notes capture what you observed when inspecting the LC — mycelium density, color, clarity of the liquid, or early signs of contamination.

Editing a liquid culture

Click Edit on the detail page to correct the label, vessel, media, volume, inoculation date or visual notes. Only the fields you change are saved.

Printing a label

Click Print label to print a small PDF tag with the LC’s label,, generation, date and a QR code. A small dialog opens with Tag size: 2x1 inch, 4x2 inch, or a Letter sheet, for this print only (it doesn’t change the stock your block labels use). It starts at 2x1, or at 4x2 if that is the PDF stock you chose for block labels; a Letter or 4x6 choice made for block labels never becomes the lab default. Click Print and the tag opens in a new tab for printing; the message that follows names the size. If your browser blocks the new tab, the dialog stays open with an Open label link. If the label can’t be made, the reason is shown in the dialog.

Connecting an LC to production

When creating a new batch (grain spawn or substrate), pick the LC or plate you inoculated it from in the Inoculated from list on the New Batch form. It is optional, and lists your plates and liquid cultures by name. This links the batch into the lineage chain, so you can trace any fruiting block back through its LC, agar plates, and original culture.

Once a batch is created from an LC, update the LC status to Used to reflect that the vessel has been consumed.

Viewing LC lineage

From any LC detail page, navigate to the lineage view to see the full tree: the ancestor chain going back through the source plate and its parent culture, and the descendant batches that were inoculated from this LC.

Use GET /lineage/lc/{id} in the API for programmatic lineage queries.

Role requirements