Culture and maintenance of Agrobacterium strains.

As aerobic chemoorganotrophs, most Agrobacterium strains will grow on a wide range of complex and defined media. Methods commonly used for the culture and storage of other chemoorganotrophs will usually work for agrobacteria as well. Problems with culture or strain maintenance will occur more frequently because of careless technique than because of strain difficulties. Here we describe a few of the complex and defined media that have been successfully used in the growth of agrobacteria including some that are semiselective for agrobacteria. Finally, we present methods suitable for short- and long-term storage of Agrobacterium strains.