Microbial Growth Website

IBERS: Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences

Single Cells Becoming Colonies

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Figure 3:

During incubation of the agar plates, each viable cell (invisible to the naked eye) that was spread to a discrete position on the agar surface will grow and divide many times to form a visible colony of microorganisms. Thus, incubating the plates enables you to estimate the number of cells that were present in the 0.1ml of the sample spread on the plate.