Medium for enhanced growth of bacteria from a Swine manure digester.

Most bacterial strains isolated from a swine manure digester grew sufficiently to permit transfer of cultures, but not characterization. Substrates, crude extracts, growth factors, and electron acceptors were evaluated for growth promotion. The growth of all but one group of the isolates was substantially increased with a medium containing glucose, cellobiose, soluble starch, pyruvate, peptone, yeast extract, minerals, volatile acids, vitamins, hemin plus vitamins K(1) and K(3), sodium bicarbonate, cysteine, and digester fluid. The strains require both known and unknown factors (in crude extracts) for maximal growth.