Expert: Florence M Rollwagen - 11/2/2008

Question
I have been trying for 2 months to get several brands of white bread to mold. I placed them in my garage and waited but so far have had no results. Is there any way that I might be able to accelerate the process...?(Science Project due in 2 weeks)

Answer
Hi Nicholas:  Thanks for your question.  If your bread has dried out in the garage that could be an explanation.  Are you keeping it moist?  I suggest a plant sprayer every day, just to keep it damp.  The garage seems a good place to try, or you could try the basement.

Mold will grow best in warm damp conditions.  How cold is it where you live?  Any chance that it is below freezing?  The mold will not grow in that temperature, it likes warmer temperatures.  Think of what happened after Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana.  Everything was wet, and it's hot there.

Since you have only 2 weeks for your experiment, you can do several things at once in the hopes that one will work.

1.  Get the bread a little wet and put it in the garage (source of mold) for a day or so.  Make sure it stays wet (not falling apart, just damp), then put it in a plastic bag in the closet (warm and moist).

2.  As above, but leave the bread in a plastic bag in the garage.  In this experiment you will test the effects of temperature and brand of bread.

3.  You will need a negative control, so take a piece of bread and dampen it, put it in a plastic bag right away (without mold spores) and place the bags where you put the others (garage and closet).

This should give you some results you can use.

Try these experiments, then write back in a week and we'll see if we can improve them.

FM Rollwagen, PhD