Soils are vital to our food future. At [insert name here] we are hard at work shedding new light on the processes within soils that shape the taste and health of our foods. 

Soil collection is an art. Knowing where and how best to collect soil samples is key to learning the most from the land. All sites have spatial variability, e.g. terrain, composition, and usage, all of which play a part in its overall characterization. 

 

All land management practices cultivate microorganisms, for better or worse. Doing so either directly or indirectly is only dependent upon the land management practices in use, but all methods create unique soil microbiomes. 

 

Today’s technologies enable new insights. We apply next-generation technologies, e.g. drones, cubesats, and nanopore DNA sequencing, which helps us to curate datasets that were never before possible. We’re soil hackers! 

 

Since the time of our forefathers we have been indirectly cultivating microorganisms within our soils, through the amendment of lands by both sustainable and traditional methods. The cultivation of our lands has proliferated the uniqueness of soil microbiomes, distinct microbial communities born out of our best-intentioned interventions. Every piece of land differs by degrees that are only visible at the genomic-level. Deciphering the metagenomic profile of a particular piece of land is the future of agriculture.