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How to compare the growth rates of different bacteria? - (May/12/2012 )

Is it possible to compare the growth rate of two different bacteria by following this method?
1) grow bacteria in broth
2) read OD
3) plot graph (OD vs time)
4) compare graph

If not, which protocol shall we use?
Thanks.

-jamestoon1-

Homework...

Why wouldn't it be possible?

-bob1-

I need to design a simple experiment to compare the growth rate of a few bacteria.
Just want to make sure my method is correct before carrying out the experiment.
I am not very sure about this because microbiology is not my major.
And when I googled for it, there seems to be many different ways to compare the growth rate (most of which I could not understand; only this OD method is the simplest)

Thanks for your response.

-jamestoon1-

Something came up while I was reading your steps (specifically #2).

Turbid cultures might need to be diluted but usually the spectrophotometer has a stated dynamic range. Above that range, the reading will not be reliable.

Just something that I keep in mind when dealing with growth and OD :)

-Julio-Claudian-