The quantitative and useful expression of the hardness of agar plate medium for mycoplasmas and bacteria

A method for quantitative expression of the hardness of agar plate medium was studied. As the method for expressing the hardness by using real values of the load which an agar plate medium could sustain for a certain length of time was found to be inaccurate, we proposed a method to express the hardness by utilizing the frequency with which various loads were sustained for a given period of time and the obtained value is referred to as 'gel solidity' (GS). The GS value within a certain range was found to be statistically useful because it linearly reflected the changes in variables in experimental conditions in respect to agar, such as agar concentration, thickness of the agar layer and the temperature of the environment, and especially because it can provide a quantitative as well as reproducible value for the hardness of agar plate medium. On the other hand, GS was little, if at all, affected by variables unrelated to agar.