Many first-time cannabis growers don’t think too hard about the soil their plants will be growing in. If the soil looks healthy enough, it should be good to go, right? Well, it might be, but that isn’t enough information to tell for sure. If you really want to know whether
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
We receive this question often and the answer is no. How do we know this? microBIOMETER® shows that soil removed from the earth and plants lose microbial biomass every day which we have confirmed with microscopic studies. The literature also confirms this. Why is there confusion? Most of the microbes
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
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (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)
Understanding Soil Organic Matter and its impact on soil health and microbial biomass. 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
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
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
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