Measurement of the microbial biomass in intact cores of soil.
The fumigation/respiration technique was used to estimate the size of the soil microbial biomass. Sieving decreased the biomass in winter but increased it in summer; we suggest that this was a consequence of the different substrates available and the different microbial populations during the year. The flush in respiration following fumigation correlated significantly with the CO2-C produced 10 days after fumigation (X), so that in the soils studied by us the biomass (B) can be calculated from Bk=0.673X-3.53, wherek is the fraction of fumigated organisms mineralized to CO2, thus avoiding the need to measure CO2 production from unfumigated cores.
Letcombe Laboratory, Agricultural Research Council, OX12 9JT, Wantage, Oxon, England.
J M
JM
Lynch
L M
LM
Panting