3/14/2002 9:06:55 PM, Bonnie York <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >Here's the information on the cost of testing for biotic content from >Elaine Ingham's Soil Food Web lab: [snip...] >That would be $96 per item we had tested.
I'm a geat admirer of Dr. Ingham's research, but $96 a pop seems a bit out of reach for the average biological farmer. And the $96 doesn't address the problem of shipping a fresh (i.e., "alive") sample hundreds or even thousands of mile to to a lab. Perhaps a better solution for many would be to check out Bob Pike's www.pike-agri.com and consider his "soil stripper" test. This test grew out of the compost work of the Luebke family of Austria. Bob, as many of you know, builds the Callahan paramagnetic soil meter. Anyway, as short as I can say it---if one is interested in the quantity of the microbial mass in a soil sample they should evaluate the soil's buffering ability to withstand the harsh action of dousing with a strong KCL solution. I follow Pike's procedure exactly, which means that immediately after determining the pH of a soil/water slurry, I add a pre-determined amount of KCL and then test the pH again. No pH drop, or a slight drop, i.e., less than 1/2 pH, points toward a soil with much biological life indeed. A drop greater than 1/2 pH speaks to a dead soil. My $20 bottle of KCL soil stripper is about one fourth gone and I've run dozens and dozens of tests. It will probably outlast me. BTW, I have absolutely no reason to question the results. IMHO, they are right on. Obviously, such a test cannot distinguish fungal from baterial life, but so what. Those who have watched "Life In The Soil" for umpteen times know that fungus and bacteria continually duke it out and that in any soil rich enough to sustain high micro-organism counts, the fungal form will dominate in cases of pH substantially lower than 6.4. Regards, Rex Harrill
