Micro-organisms in Desert Soil

Posted by Robert Dailey Dec 9, 2006

Desert soils are notoriously lacking in micro-organisms. Dried by winds and constantly pounded by ultra-violet rays from the sun, lack of rain, and many other factors contribute to the dirth of these microbes.

However, in good garden soil, there are millions of these organisms in cubic inch. Bacteria, fungi, algae, viruses, nematodes, actinomycetes, protozoa and yeast are all living organisms which help break down soil into nutrients that plant roots can absorb.

In fact, a couple of pounds of good organic soil will include almost two trillion organisms.

A gram of good soil will usually have the following ranges of microbes”

• Three million – 50 million bacteria
• One million – 20 million actinomycetes
• 5,000 – one million fungi
• 1,000 – one million yeast
• 1,000 – 500,000 protozoa
• 1,000 – 500,000 algae
• 10 – 50,000 nematodes