Interaction of commercial wine yeasts and malolacric bacteria

Twenty-nine strains of malolacric bacteria and forty-three strains of wine yeasts have been obtained and placed in the departmental culture collection as source material for this project. Nine diffusion type assays for screening yeast/bacterial interactions have been examined using various media preparations. For yeast strain influences on lactic acid bacteria, the Circular Surface Inoculation using a dilute grape juice medium has already shown some antagonistic relationships with the few strains tested. Unfortunately, the Circular Surface Inoculation Assay may not prove to be satisfactory for determining the influence of LAB producer strains on yeast target strains as the yeast grow too rapidly and develop a lawn before LAB growth occurs.