Phage Plaque Assays (Soft Agar Overlay): Forming uniform bacterial lawns in 0.8% agar for plaque visualization and counting on Escherichia coli.

Phage Titration: Determining bacteriophage concentration by serial dilution and overlay plating on host strains such as Escherichia coli.

Phage Propagation: Amplifying lytic and temperate phages using LB nutrients (1.0% Tryptone, 0.5% Yeast Extract, 1.0% NaCl) and 0.8% agar overlays.

Host Range Testing: Assessing phage infectivity across bacterial hosts (e.g., Escherichia coli, Salmonella enterica).

General Bacterial Lawns for Overlays: Creating confluent lawns to test phage-antibiotic interactions or inhibitor effects on Escherichia coli.

Transduction Experiments: P1/λ-mediated genetic transduction workflows in Escherichia coli and P22 in Salmonella enterica using top agar overlays.

Library Screening (Plaque Lifts): Screening λ or M13 phage display/genomic libraries via plaque lifts from 0.8% top agar.

Environmental Phage Isolation: Enriching and isolating environmental phages by overlay plating on susceptible hosts like Escherichia coli or Salmonella enterica.

Efficiency of Plating (EOP) Assays: Comparing phage infectivity across strains using standardized LB top agar conditions.

Burst Size and One-Step Growth Curves: Conducting phage growth kinetics with reproducible diffusion in 0.8% agar overlays.