Inoculation experiment

At the CEH grow-dome facility we have performed soil inoculations to test if soil microbial composition mediates the effects of roots and land use on soil aggregate stability.

Intact soil cores of ∅ 110 mm and 150 mm height (1.42 l) were collected on a cropland and ancient woodland in Wytham (Oxfordshire, UK). Another set of pots were also filled with loamy soil as a control. Soil cores were sterilized by gamma irradiation with a range between 40 and 60 kGy. Sterilized soil cores from “cropland”, “ancient” and control were inoculated systematically with three treatments of fresh inoculum: “cropland”, “ancient” and “no inoculation”. On each combination, seeds from Brachypodium sylvaticum and Urtica dioica were sown with three replicates of each. Plants grew for 6 months allowing the re-establishment of the soil microbial community and the growth of roots. The pots were watered with an automatic station. Data on soil, roots and aggregate stability were collected and soil microbial communities were analysed with Next Gen sequencing techniques.