A microbiologist’s perspective with Andy Neal - Webinar Mar'23

In a simple way, microbiologist Andy Neal from Rothamsted Research in the UK demonstrates the complex interactions between physical soil structure and microbial metabolism with significant implications for nutrient-use efficiency in soils. And you get to experience being a soil microbe!

Q&As occur throughout this webinar.

To register and join future webinars live: https://www.quorumsense.org.nz/network-events
If you have any questions, feel free to email us at contact@quorumsense.org.nz

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Content

Topics covered in this webinar included:

• Understanding soil as being dynamic

• Soil and the carbon cycle – the fate of plant derived organic carbon

• Relationships between soil structure and microbial function

• The biological process of how carbon can be sequestered in soils

• The importance of maintaining living roots and maximising photosynthesis to cause carbon sequestration

• Variables that enhance or inhibit carbon sequestration in soils, particularly soil texture and management.

• Increasing soil organic matter (OM) to increase total soil porosity and soil porosity connectivity

• Why we want to increase OM, carbon, and porosity in our soils for creating resilient farming systems

• Soil microbes expressing different genes depending on their soil environment, and how increasing soil OM causes a positive feedback on soil structure and microbial function.

• Nutrient benefits of high OM, well structured soils versus low OM and poorly structured soils.

Links and resources

• [Andy’s slides will be available shortly]

If you have other great resources that we can share, please use the contact@quorumsense.org.nz email to send us your suggestions!