Development of a novel inoculum preparation method for solid-state fermentation-Cellophane film culture (CFC) technique

This study reports a user-friendly technique in the preparation of fungal inoculum intended for solid-state fermentation (SSF)-cellophane film culture (CFC) technique. This technique uses cellophane film-overlaid agar plates to facilitate the separation of fungal biomass. The findings showed that inoculum of P. sajor-caju produced is viable, and it was confirmed by the presence of laccase enzyme activity in SSF of rice husk. The correlation between fungal dry and wet weights (r(2) = 0.9329) provides an accurate estimation of fungal dry weight from its wet weight during inoculum preparation. Besides, this technique does not require a strict sterile handling condition and possesses lower risk of contamination compared with liquid culture and agar plugs approaches. In consideration of large scale inoculum preparation, this newly developed technique is comparatively more cost-effective, which further suggests its potential in inoculum preparation from mycelial fungi for SSF. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.