The pot culture is grown in the greenhouse for a minimum of four months, with sudangrass as host. Spores are extracted at three months to determine species diversity and sporulation yield and to make voucher specimens . If there are no spores, roots are examined for the presence of mycorrhiza. Species Separation from an Assemblage A sample of 50 and 100 ml of the pot culture contents is removed after storage and all spores extracted. Species composition is checked against results obtained from the 3-month sample.
Some cultures yield five or six species, and they are assigned consecutive letters.
If any of these cultures are not successful or die, then it is deaccessed, but in such a way that the assigned accession number can never be used again. The cone-tainers are grown for four months, with spores extracted at the end of three months to determine presence and abundance of sporulation and to make vouchers. They are handled exactly the same way as the parent culture. This number consists of the parent accession number followed by a hyphenated number indicating culture cycle. The main disadvantage is that nonsporulating fungi may be present at low levels in mycorrhizal roots that are part of the inoculum.