What is the value of the Petri plate in microbiology? Why are they cultured inverted?
I am assuming that asking the ‘value’ of a Petri dish means, ‘What is the function of a Petri dish?’ The Petri dish is the most basic equipment used in Microbiology. It allows a bacterium to be streaked on solid medium, observed for culture purity, and isolated as a single colony. From this, a Microbiologist can grow millions of replicates of a single bacterium. The Petri dishes are inverted during incubation due to potential condensation of liquid in the dish. If the medium were placed in the incubator facing up — the bacteria would turn into a slimy mess, thus preventing isolation of single colonies.
