Andrew Turnbull is the owner of SouthWest Agronomy Ltd (SWA) located in Tavistock, England. His company offers advisory and consultancy services to golf courses and sports turf facilities. One issue the company faced was how to prove to their customers that their recommended treatments were actually having a positive influence
Andrew Turnbull is the owner of SouthWest Agronomy Ltd (SWA) located in Tavistock, England. His company offers advisory and consultancy services to golf courses and sports turf facilities. One issue the company faced was how to prove to their customers that their recommended treatments were actually having a positive influence
Amy Gardner of Kalispell, Montana serves farmers in the Flathead Valley as an agronomy coach through her business, Lower Valley Consulting Inc. Amy has been scouting soil health trials as part of gathering third-party research for the company AgriGro. Farmers have been applying AgriGro’s prebiotic technology to boost soil health
The microBIOMETER® was developed with the need in mind to deliver a device that could be manufactured very reasonably so that it could service the whole world. For over 50 years scientists have known that microbes are the best indicator of soil health. One of the common methods used for
Created and performed by microBIOMETER® intern, Leanna Ramus, environmental science student at Siena College, this sample experiment is appropriate for high school and advanced middle schoolers. The research project is designed to help students study soil health and understand the impact of soil biology on soil health and plant growth.
Seasonal dynamics are a major driver of soil microbial communities. Much like you and I, microbes are more active during some seasons, and more dormant during others. This can be attributed to the different responses microbes have to nutrient inputs, climatic conditions, and other soil properties. As there are a
This is an abridged version of Dr. Judith Fitzpatrick’s talk at last December’s Acres U.S.A. Eco-Ag conference. Article also featured in the April 2022 issue of Acres U.S.A. magazine. When a grower first goes organic, they often have one field that’s organic and, right next to it, a field that
A teaspoon of healthy soil contains billions of microbes. Microbes feed the plants, strengthen their roots, and increase their yields. A plant sends signals to attract the microbes it needs at any given moment. In chemical-free agriculture, there is a good marriage between plants and microbes. In a complex, self-regulating
Janet Atandi, a nematology PhD student in Kenya, is currently working on an assessment of banana fiber paper on soil health as part of a Wrap and Plant technology study. In brief, she is testing the long-term effect of using modified banana fiber paper to manage plant-parasitic nematodes and its
microBIOMETER® is the only non-laboratory test for F:B. The methods of measuring F:B ratio give very different values 1-11. The Gold Standard for estimating fungal biomass is microscopy, which calculates fungal biovolume. Note that microBIOMETER® detects the same range as microscopy- not surprising as it was validated by correlation with
Nature article reports that microbial biomass estimates by microBIOMETER® correlates with soil health and yield stability. The microBIOMETER® soil test was used to report microbial biomass in a recent Nature publication*. Scientists Dr. Judith Fitzpatrick and Dr. Brady Trexler of microBIOMETER® collaborated with a University of Tennessee team headed by
The Biospheres, working through the CDA*, accompanies and trains farmers/agricultural companies in the agroecological transition based on a soil conservation approach. The group is also working on applied research projects and therefore on trials under real farming conditions in which they evaluate the impact of certain changes in practices on