Mould or bloom?

[jkim05]

I like the Grissom suggestion



Also take a look at Paecilomyces. It a white to yellow mold that is commonly found on grapes and canned fruit (a good source if you are looking for a donor). But then again you have over 100,000 species of mold with another million or so yet to be identified...kind of daunting!

I'm not a mycologist but have some experience with indoor molds, their causes, dispersal, remediation, etc. If you keep the temps below 85 you should see good growth. Above that and some molds won't grow too well. Below 65F/18C and down to about 40F/5C they will grow but the rate is much slower and I'm sure you don't want to wait 3 years.

Take your grannies damp cellar that doesn't get visited but twice a year (That wasn't a euphemism ). Damp, musty, cold, and some old books have mold spots on them. If you take that same cellar and increase only the temperature and keep the humidity and air flow the same the colonized mold growth rate will increase 10 fold and new colonies will also start to flourish. Think scene out of Aliens...

As for the UV light killing the present molds spores...The light you used is not the correct wavelength to do so so you should be fine there.

The shorter wavelength light would kill them but you would run the risk of bleaching the wrapper during long exposures. But it would be interesting to see how long it would take to get the wrapper to bleach compared to how long the mold could survive under the UV light. If there is no cross over (i.e mold spores die at 2 mins and wrapper bleaches at 30 hours) then you have a marketable product on your hands .

Very interesting info. Thanks.

[daverave999]

Would you believe it? I cannot get these bloody cigars to start growing mould!

I left the second one out in the open for half a day to try and get some spores on it. At this rate I think I will have to stick something in there as seed mould. I may try a third and roll it around the floor in the utility room but I'm starting to become a bit weirded out by these anti-fungal cigars.

[eggopp]

I wonder if you placed a small mushroom in the bag if that will have any effect? afterall a mushroom is living and dies very slowly and as mould i think is part of the fungus family perhaps a mushroom will speed up or contribute to your experiment.. just a thought, one that can clearly be dismissed

[daverave999]

MaledettoToscano has suggested using a piece of cheese in a similar way on my blog, and SeanP suggested bread above. I like the idea of a mushroom farm on a cigar.
I don't know what else to do really. Anyone got any suggestions where I can expose them to spores? I find it hard to believe my house is low on the spore count.

[tippexx]

I think molds are inherent to their host Dave. They will grow even in sterile conditions. Possible what you need is a cigar patient that is already susceptible. I believe you know someone who's got one.

[Lascaux]

growing mushroom farms on cigars
now with the right type of mushroom the outcome could be......... mind-blowing.

[SeanP]

Are you keeping them in the dark? And I would like to retract my previous bread comment and replace it with the grape. I think you will get a more compatible mold (Paecilomyces) on grapes then what you would get on bread (Penicillium).

[nicwing]

Man, this thread is turning into a biology lesson, I love it.

Will there be high resolution microscope pictures of the mould, I do hope so!

I believe you can get USB microscopes now, plugging one of those babies into Skype we could have a live Mouldskypecast. Do you think Bill Oddie is well enough to host it?

[EugeneSax]

And I would like to retract my previous bread comment and replace it with the grape.

Don't grape skins also have (live) yeast spores on them? If so your cigars' tobacco could go through a secondary (or tertiary) fermentation - with potentially pleasant effects ;-)

[PoohBore]

I believe you can get USB microscopes now,

Yes they do had a leaflet from Maplin yesterday http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...22945&source=1 ?30.

[nicwing]

Yes they do had a leaflet from Maplin yesterday http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?...22945&source=1 ?30.

I feel a whip round coming on!

[daverave999]

We have mould. I'll test with the UV light tomorrow if I get time.

Attached are some pics. They were taken through the bag so some show reflection.

[MaledettoToscano]

Hurray! Really look forward to see how these compare under the UV light.

[daverave999]

Me too. I didn't want to do it tonight as it was a complete pain in the arse setting the camera up last time, with the tripod and playing with exposure and sensitivity settings on the camera when I don't really know what I'm doing. So, I'll do it when I have more time. Wednesday at the latest, though I will keep my eye on it so it doesn't go nuts.

[EDIT] I could just look myself but the whole point is pictures for everyone on the web.

[daverave999]

OK this isn't great but it's a start. Unfortunately, on removing the cigar from the bag I brushed the mould slightly so it went flat. Also, the lighting isn't great on this video so it's difficult to see. That said, it is reasonably obvious from the video that nothing is fluorescing under the UV.



The first light is the 365 nm that caused the bright fluorescence in my first post. The second is the near-UV torch. Because of the increased amount of blue (visible) light in the second one, you can actually see the mould, but note this is not glowing like in my initial picture, it's just visible because it is white against brown.

I've put the cigar back into the bag and I'm going to leave it until I get a lot of mould so there's no ambiguity. Though at the moment, it's looking good that I've proved what I intended to ie. bloom fluoresces under UV, white mould doesn't when specifically 365 nm light is used.