CONTAMINATION TRACKING
Find the Source Before It Spreads
Track every contamination event back to its source—bad substrate, dirty workspace, or failed sterilization—before it destroys your entire operation.
HOW IT WORKS
Trace contamination to its root cause
Scan contaminated items and log details: bacterial, mold, or yeast; severity level; location in batch; and visual observations with photos.
See if siblings from the same culture are affected. Track back through generations to find the contamination source—agar plate, liquid culture, or grain spawn.
Analytics reveal trends: specific substrate batches, work areas, team members, or sterilization equipment linked to higher contamination rates.
BENEFITS
What you gain
When one batch shows contamination, instantly identify related batches from the same culture or substrate. Quarantine and inspect before losing hundreds of bags.
Don't just discard contaminated batches—trace back through genealogy to discover if the problem started at the agar culture, grain spawn, or substrate stage.
Track contamination rates by strain, substrate recipe, and sterilization method. Identify which techniques are working and which need improvement.
Flag contaminated mother cultures before they spread to production batches. Save your genetic library from cross-contamination that could ruin months of selection work.
USE CASES
Real-world applications
Multiple blocks show green mold contamination:
- Scan contaminated blocks and mark as "Mold - Trichoderma"
- Check genealogy—all affected blocks from Substrate Batch #47
- Quarantine remaining 60 blocks from the same substrate batch
- Investigate substrate supplier and switch sources to prevent repeat
An agar plate shows bacterial contamination:
- Mark the contaminated plate in MycoQR with photos and notes
- See the plate was used to inoculate 10 grain spawn jars yesterday
- Inspect all 10 jars immediately—catch 3 showing early bacterial growth
- Discard affected jars before bacterial contamination spreads further
Contamination rates suddenly double:
- Review contamination analytics for the past 30 days
- Notice pattern: batches sterilized in Autoclave #2 have 35% contamination
- Batches from Autoclave #1 only show 8% contamination (normal)
- Service Autoclave #2—find faulty pressure gauge causing under-sterilization
Ready to stop contamination in its tracks?
See how contamination tracking can protect your operation from costly losses