A wet-sieving and flotation technique for the detection of resting sporangia of Synchytrium endobioticum in soil

A wet-sieving technique is described for the extraction of resting sporangia of Synchytrium endobioticum from soil. Fractions between 71 and 25 μm. were held on sieves of aperture size 40 and 25 μm. Resting sporangia in these fractions were then separated from soil particles of similar size by chloroform flotation and centrifugation. The viability of the sporangia was assessed microscopically by viewing them by transmitted light.