Each plate contains as needle (left) and a cone (right) taken from a living tree. In this image the CMA plate is on the right and the PDA plate is on the right. This comparison is interesting because while the CMA plate appears to have more diversity, the PDA plate has more overall growth. In this case it is harder to decide which media is better, as it would really depend on what we wanted to do with it. If we wanted to grow a lot of fungi quickly the PDA would be better, but if we wanted to isolate more species the CMA would be better.
