Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Proper Ionic Strength for Nutrient Broth

Squiggly - 20-8-2013 at 14:54

Hello all, this is my first thread--great site you have here, I've been lurking for some time.

My question is simple. Is anyone aware of a "generally accepted" value for an ideal ionic strength for growing bacteria?

I realize bacteria are quite varied and so there will be no precise value, but I would appreciate being pointed to any reference of either an acceptable range of ionic strengths or a specific optimal ionic strength for a given species.

This query is in relation to a compost tea project I am currently undertaking if that helps at all. Many organic farmers brew compost tea using fairly crude methods, and I'm simply doing some personal work to probe how to optimize this process without breaking the bank.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for access to this great community :)

Bonee - 1-9-2013 at 01:13

I am not sure if ionic strength matters much
what I found out it can interfere with bacterial adhesion at most
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC201769/
I think if you look at two widely used nutrient broth you can get an estimate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysogeny_broth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOC_medium

I think nutrients matter more than ionic strenght...