Until now tests for microbial biomass were expensive and time consuming. microBIOMETER® costs $13.50 or less and takes 20 minutes with results read by your cell phone. Only microBIOMETER® identified soil health in a U. of Tennessee study of soil health test methods including Cornell, USDA, Alabama and other soil

Marcelo Chiappetta of Chiapeta’s Farm in Brazil shared with us how microBIOMETER® is assisting them with their soil management efforts. Their main agricultural crops are soybeans and corn. Between those crops, as they have a temperate climate during the winter months in southern Brazil, is the possibility of growing a cover crop mixture of

Soil microbes are tightly bound to and often covered in soil making them very hard to evaluate by microscopy. The special magic of microBIOMETER® is the extraction powder and whisking process that separates most of the microbes from the soil. And during the 20 minute settling time allows the soil particles to

AMF penetrate the root and establish little areas in plant root cells where they can exchange nutrients with the plant. AMF improves the nutrients available to the plant by collecting soil minerals such as phosphorous, nitrogen, magnesium and manganese through an extensive network of fine fibers (hyphae) that increase the

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) colonize 80% of crops. Their effect on plant growth can be positive, neutral or negative. It depends on many factors including the crop species and genotype, the species of AMF, and the characteristics of the soil. A low pH favors colonization of the plant by AMF

We are often asked what is a good level of microbial biomass (MB). There is no one answer. The level of MB you can reach is dependent on soil organic matter (SOM.) Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a large part of soil organic matter but SOM is a mixture of

Leeston Pastoral is a 5th generation, family owned farm in New South Wales, Australia. Historically, they have had a fine wool Merino & Hereford cattle breeding operation. Over the last 20 years they have moved to focus on cattle. The 2019 drought forced them to reevaluate what operation they wanted to

Green Country Worms is a small worm farm located in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Their main focus is producing high quality worm castings. They started vermicomposting in 2008 when they received their first pound of compost worms. 12 years later they still love composting with worms and are fascinated with the worm

Sítio Escola Portão Grande hosted students from the Mentoring and Language Acquisition Program (MLAB) for a full day immersion at the farm in Brazil which featured soil testing with microBIOMETER®. MLAB is a mentoring and language acquisition program for Harvard students and Brazilian high school students, with low income and high performance.

The graph pictured here from the USDA website depicts the ratio of fungi to bacteria as a characteristic of the type of system it is in. An excerpt from the article: “Grasslands and agricultural soils usually have bacterial-dominated food webs – that is, most biomass is in the form of

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungal (AMF) are dependent on the plant for their food, therefore, they die when the plant dies. Lucky for us before they die they form spores that can live a long time in the soil. When we have looked at the soil from vineyards in winter it is

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are fungi that live inside and on the roots of most plants. The plant feeds the fungi and the fungi sends out its root- like hypha collecting water and nutrients such as phosphate, potassium and nitrate from the soil and transfers them to the plant.