Recovery of an oscillatory mode of batch yeast growth in water for a pure culture

New experiments that we conducted show an oscillatory mode of batch yeast growth in water, for a pure culture of the T206 strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The oscillations are damped over time, allowing the cell concentration to stabilize at the stationary equilibrium. A new proposed model that includes the complete cell growth dynamics is introduced and showed to recover the experimental oscillatory results. In addition the proposed model recovers effects that are frequently encountered in experiments such as a “Lag Phase” as well as an inflection point in the “ln curve” of the cell concentration. The proposed model recovers also the Logistic Growth Curve as a special case. For purposes of providing some interesting contrast we present additional experimental as well as computational results for the growth of the VIN7 strain of S. cerevisiae in a 5% grape juice medium. The latter indicates even stronger oscillations during the growth process. In order to capture experimentally the oscillatory growth behavior, very frequent readings are required (every 15–30 min) and the measurement process needs to be extended to longer than usual periods (over 250 h).