Explain the Microscope Colony Counts and Agar Droplets?
Microscope Colony Counts - The method involves counting of micro-colonies that develop on agar layered over a microscope slide.
Agar Droplets - The method was developed by Sharpe & Kilsby. In the method, food homogenate is diluted in a set of three tubes of molten agar. From each tube, a line of 5 droplets is transferred to empty Petri-plate with the help of a sterile capillary pipette. Colonies are counted with the help of 10x viewer after incubation for 24 hours. The method is faster than conventional TPC and also no dilution blanks are required. Only one Petri-dish per sample is needed.