Assessing Soil Biology video

Join us as we have fun with the microscope in this workshop hosted by soil food web expert Troy Hinke of Living Roots Compost Tea. Learn how to identify soil food web characters in your soils, compost, and more so you can know what is truly happening beneath your feet. We will be looking at several samples of composts and soils to view and identify the varieties of microorganisms found within. We will be assessing the bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, and microarthropods. We’ll likely also see some soil aggregates, minerals, and organic acids as well as possible other soil microbes.
This class builds upon the microscope class held at Living Web Farms in 2018 and assumes a basic knowledge of all soil food web characters. Discover how to use your own microscope to see if your soils are a bustling microbial metropolis or a withered wasteland. Troy will go through each sample and show how he performs an assessment of soil microorganisms step by step. Tune in at 7p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Thursday, March 17, 2022. This event is part of the Organic Grower’s School Spring Conference which is partnering with Mother Earth News to jointly produce the 2022 conference.
Our new workshop format welcomes live participants via LivingWebFarms.org and our YouTube channel. No registration is necessary. Workshops will average less than 2 hours in length, with a 5-minute intermission after the first hour and a Q & A period at the end.