Avocado seed hydrolysate as an alternative growth medium for fungi

Abstract

Fungi are diverse organisms that inhabit all niches on earth, with great metabolic diversity and various developmental structures. Cultivation of fungi is necessary for their genetic, biochemical, and morphological characterization. Due to their great metabolic capacity, fungi can grow on poorly processed raw materials. That quality has been taken advantage of to formulate inexpensive growth media such as those based on potato. Here, we test the suitability of a growth media consisting of hydrolysates of avocado seeds (ASM), which are by-products of avocado agroindustry, to cultivate six different fungal isolates coming from strawberry plants.We compared the performance of this medium versus PDA and V8, two well-known media among mycologists. We show that ASM is a competitive and suitable medium for fungal growth.