We have successfully cultivated endophytic fungi from Magnolia grandiflora. We have isolated purified cultures for some of these fungi and established long-term stocks.

We have obtained consistent results with different size tissue pieces if we normalize by “edge,”,implying that the fungi need to be near the cut edge of the tissue to “escape” into the media. We had some trouble with the smallest of pieces perhaps due to penetration of the sterilizing solutions. The endophyte 3.1 experiments indicates that 3. 5 and 2.5 mm sizes give the same numbers as the 2 mm, but do not seem to suffer from the small size.

Summer 2014, BWT carries out a large random sampling of Magnolia leaf tissue endophytes. Fifteen leaves from Magnolia alpha were harvested, going 360^o around the tree. All leaves were older (non-supple), at least 4 leaves away from the growing tip of the branch. 40 2.5 mm radius leaf disks were produced from each leaf and pooled for sterilization and plating. About 450 leaf disks were plated per experiment. The lab tried to do this one a week for the entire summer.

We have also done a pilot experiment of developing leaves. Although the results were preliminary, it appeared that young leaves were almost devoid of endophytes! Definitely worth pursuing!