History

Objective: The study aims to find a natural, low-cost culture medium that is available instead of the conventional chemical culture media for cultivation of Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria. Methods: In the current study, the male inflorescence of the Typha domingensis Pers plant, which is locally called the Kurat, was used to grow Gram-positive and negative clinical isolates and compare the growth with media commonly used for bacterial growth as a nutrient and blood agar. The possibility of using the locally prepared medium in the liquid form was also studied and compared with the liquid routine media used for the cultivation of bacteria as the nutrient broth. Results: the results showed that Kurat media was able to grow both Gram positive and negative bacteria in both forms (solid and liquid), when kurat was used instead of one of the main component of nutrient agar or both (peptone and/ or yeast extract), adding a colour to clarify the growth by using safranin to the medium, the growth was not affected by dye and it was similar to that resulted by using nutrient agar. Conclusion: Although the growth was slightly less or as same as the commercially used media but the idea of using Kurat media is to use cheaper media and to try using food product as culture media for bacteria, which suggest using the food wastes as a media for growing bacteria to minimize waste products and diminished the cost of the expensive media.