The Palouse Prairie seventh-graders studied jars with blends of lunch waste and wood chips with a carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of either two to one or five to one. They found a ratio with two parts carbon to one part nitrogen optimized microbial activity.
Meet Michael Strickland (go.uidaho.edu/3VuJr2r) and Zachary Kayler (go.uidaho.edu/4aub5Bf), associate professors in the Department of Soil and Water Systems (go.uidaho.edu/3PAgcYu) at University of Idaho. They are leading a national contingency of scientists in building what amounts to huge terrariums at U of I: all to study a world that scientists still don’t understand — the deep soils under our feet.
Where’s the big science project on deep soil? It’s coming soon.
Idaho is “really a cool place” to locate the ecotron lab because it boasts a diverse range of soils, says the project’s PI, microbial ecologist Michael Strickland of the University of Idaho.