Foothill Biological

02/17/2022

Identifying amoebae in a soil sample can be quite easy. It can also be tricky. For those new to soil microscopy, it’s easy to imagine all sorts of objects – spores, cysts, mineral particles, random bits of decomposing material – are amoebae, because they may resemble in some way the protective...

06/16/2020

The video above shows a diverse assortment of flagellates produced in an aerated tea. This tea failed to develop any other organism groups (aside from bacteria, which flagellates eat); even so, this is a relatively high-quality result that can often be coaxed from lower-quality inoculum materials us...

04/28/2020

If there’s one thing that’s been sorely missing from our learning institutions in the modern era, it’s the pursuit of knowledge surrounding soil ecology. So when Mallory Cerkleski, an undergrad at Guilford College in North Carolina, offered us the opportunity to contribute to her soil study, w...

02/17/2020

This week we came across something unusual, and of course it got us all geeky. It was an amoeba we found in an aged batch of inoculum material. But it wasn’t ju

02/06/2020

If you still haven’t selected groundcover plantings for the coming season, that may be a good thing. Because it’s a good time to make sure your choices fit the

01/31/2020

So revolting and so awesome!

Anybody craving a big slice of grub cake? Nom! Nom!

Cake by Katherine Dey of Deviant Desserts

01/31/2020

In the world of soil management, there is no one like Dr. Elaine Ingham. She is the undisputed guiding light for a fast-growing group of intrepid folks out ther

01/22/2020

https://www.foothillbiological.com/post/here-s-how-easy-it-can-be-to-screw-up-your-soil

Today we have an informal experiment that shows just how easily things can go wrong. We recently spent some time in the greenhouse, propagating landscaping plan

01/17/2020

Well said.

Sourcing hundreds of tons of clean organic material is not easy. Unfortunately, at this time in this country all organic materials are viewed as the same by most of the public. Most of the commercial compost you can buy on the market is a product of what ever gets dumped off on their lot. They get paid dumping fees to take the material before it is composted. Organic certification inspectors only tend to look at the temperatures of the windrows during composting. The microorganisms in the material are the ones responsible for breaking down toxic chemicals and compounds, if they are not present how can we begin to trust this kind of compost? Talk to your local composter, your worm farmers, and soil mixers- let them know the role beneficial microbes play in a healthy environment. It is hard to find good compost right now, but with demand will come product! If they know you care they will change their ways! Having access to poison free food and medicine is our right and it will become so if we stand up for it.

01/15/2020

https://www.foothillbiological.com/post/yes-healthy-soil-biology-controls-w**ds-here-s-how-it-works

There’s long been that question, sometimes tossed about for rhetorical sport, of what defines a w**d. The prevailing answer offers a certain existential satisfa

01/06/2020

https://www.foothillbiological.com/post/huanglongbing-is-just-a-bacterial-infection-it-shouldn-t-be-destroying-the-world-s-citrus

For nearly two decades now, we’ve watched as a scary pathogen jumped from one region to the next, decimating the world’s citrus. And finally now, way up here in

12/31/2019

https://www.foothillbiological.com/post/in-this-season-of-dormant-spraying-consider-adding-biology-and-fixing-pest-problems-permanently

It’s winter again, when the thoughts of orchardists turn to dormant-season pest control. In this reflective time of year, one should always keep in mind an impo