Rationale 

Farms such as the Lafayette Community Garden aimed to be as productive as possible to return the highest yield for those who depended on the food they produced. A key way to achieve this goal was to utilize and maintain a healthy microbiome diversity, as higher microbiome diversity improved the success of plant functions (Saleem et al.). Another popular strategy to improve the productivity of plants was the use of pesticides. However, these pesticides had side effects, such as changing the pH of the soil (Spadotto et al.). Furthermore, this change in pH negatively affected the microbiome diversity of the soil (Cho et al.). The Lafayette Community Garden used pesticides for only some of their plants. Our research study determined the extent to which pesticides affected the microbiome and weighed the consequences of whether pesticide use was overall beneficial.

Lincoln Sharing Garden Lafayette, IN 47906 September 5, 2024

Soil Collection Method:

To collect the samples, a soil corer was inserted into the soil of kohlrabi and okra, rotated back and forth to the desired depth, and the samples were then placed into plastic bags for preservation. Upon return to the laboratory, the samples were frozen to prevent any alteration in their composition before subsequent analysis.