Blog

Soil Testing with Soul Fire Farm

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

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Soil Microbial Biomass and Respiration

Both microbial biomass and respiration are parameters used to assess soil health. Soil respiration is the measure of the carbon dioxide produced by the microbes in a given weight of soil while microbial biomass is the measure of the mass of microbes- both active and dormant.  Microbial biomass (MB) is

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Carbon Sequestration

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

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What is a good level of soil microbial biomass?

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

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