Soil Health

Is your soil healthy? Bioscience can measure the microbial diversity of your soil.

An estimate of microbial species richness can assist in land management by allowing you to test objectively whether soil management strategies are effective and beneficial. Bioscience measures microbial diversity by estimating species richness for up to 10 groups of important soil organisms: fungi, archea, all bacteria, and groups of important soil bacteria.

Bioscience ARISA assay can compare microbial diversity across fields, plots, treatments, management approaches, and amendment types. This is the first such commercial service available anywhere in the world.

Using the power of genetics for land management

A bioscience ARISA assay requires as little as 2g of soil. The assay will return data for up to 10 microbial groups. Operational taxonomic unit (OTU) counts are an index of the number of species of that group in the soil sample. Principle compondents analysis (PCA) reveals how the composition of the OTUs (equivalent to species) in the microbial communities have shifted in response to a treatment.