To culture an organism is to reproduce it for scientific study. When people grow micro-organisms, we say they are being cultured.
To culture an organism is to reproduce it for scientific study. When people grow micro-organisms, we say they are being cultured.
Culturing microbes
The most usual way to culture microbes is in a petri dish, using agar as a growth medium. This is how researchers carry out work such as testing a surface area for its microbial biodiversity or growing microbes to produce antibiotics. When the micro-organisms have been put in the growth medium, the petri dish is placed in an oven to keep it nice and warm. This allows the microbes to propagate quickly. A single microbial cell can develop into a visible colony in this way.
Copying nature
It remains difficult when attempting to culture microbes to copy the necessary conditions as they occur in nature, such as temperature, acidity, nutrients, etc. Even nowadays, less than 1% of micro-organisms can be cultured using a growth medium in the laboratory.