FungiMorph

Summary

Growth dynamics and hyphal morphology are important considerations in the study of fungal plant pathogens. Currently, these traits are measured by manual monitoring. We will make a self-contained fungal colony phenotyping incubator, which will allow us to automatically monitor fungal growth and morphology. It will use a number of different technologies to achieve accurate measurement of colony growth, morphology and developmental transitions in both ‘day’ and ‘night’ conditions, through the use of infrared lights and imaging. Furthermore, through the use of different illumination sources, fungal responses to different wavelengths of light can be assessed. Through direct hardware control of temperature, imaging (through a flatbed scanner and camera), lighting (LED’s of differing wavelengths) and a simple touchscreen user interface, the raspberry Pi will be used to control the major environmental parameters and rate of image capture.