We first had the pleasure of working with Briana Alfaro and Soul Fire Farm in 2021 when they began testing soil with farmers in their network as part of their SARE research project, Soil Carbon Capture for Diverse Farmers; Black, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous and other farmers and farm workers of
The rise of global carbon dioxide levels has called on countries, businesses, and organizations to set goals and limits on how much carbon emissions they can produce over the succeeding years. Several international agreements have directed more significant action, most notably the Paris Agreement governing the fight against climate change.
IngenuityWorx has been working to prove that the application of nanobubble oxygen as an irrigation/fertigation tool can provide low cost, easily applied plant benefits both indoors and outdoors. It has been known for over 40 years that increased oxygen to plant roots in soil improves nutrient absorption, reduces effects of
Austin Arrington of Plant Group NYC performed a research study on hemp’s capacity to sequester carbon. Austin utilized microBIOMETER® in this research. We originally had the pleasure of meeting Austin through Indigo Ag’s Terraton Challenge. Plant Group is a fellow semi-finalist and alumni. Hemp has the promise of being a
Calibration of microBIOMETER® to units of µg microbial carbon / gram soil The gold standard of laboratory soil microbial biomass testing is Chloroform Fumigation and Extraction (CFE). The multiple steps, time, and labor involved with CFE require pricing at up to $500 per sample. CFE works by comparing the difference
We recently received the following questions from one of our customers and below are the responses from Dr. Fitzpatrick. Part of my research is surrounding the soil organic carbon results we attained from microBIOMETER®, and I am wondering if someone from your team could provide more information on what this
We were excited to hear from our long-time customer Marcelo Chiappetta of Chiappetta Agricultural Company on how his microBIOMETER® testing has been progressing. Below is what he shared with us. “Here in southern Brazil the past 5 years we’ve been working with biological agriculture and changing the way we see and
Modern agriculture practices have led to the systematic degradation of the world’s soil and release of carbon into the environment. The effects are increased need for expensive and environmentally dangerous inputs (fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides), the loss of fertile top soil, decrease in water holding capacity of soil and dangerously
Soil carbon is important to soil health because it enables microbial life. Microbes are able to obtain carbon directly from plant exudates, however, much of their carbon source is from the dead plant and plant derived materials that they digest. We harvest much of the above ground matter from crops, but
Increasing your soil microbes increases carbon sequestration. Carbon is stored in the soil as “humic materials” i.e. C,N,P,K etc.; rich organic matter which is the soil organic carbon or sequestered carbon in the soil. The formation of humus, the final stable carbon, is a stepwise process. All organic carbon
In learning how to develop healthy soil for healthy plants and people, Frans Plugge of New Zealand discovered the importance of increasing the fungi population in his garden and this led him to microBIOMETER®. “The microBIOMETER® soil test makes measuring the fungi to bacteria ratio so easy,” Frans said. To
microBIOMETER® reports the microbial biomass as ug of microbial carbon/gram of soil. The chart pictured here shows how much carbon can be stored in an acre just by increasing microbial biomass alone. (Chemically fertilized farmland averages about 100 ug/microbial C/g of soil.) Microbial biomass is the best single estimate of