In this article we introduce soil bacteria, which are tiny single-celled organisms and by far the most numerous of all the soil microbes. A teaspoon of healthy soil can contain up to 3 billion bacteria—roughly equivalent in mass to 5 big dairy cows on a soccer-field-sized garden! In the right conditions (i.e., a laboratory), one bacteria can produce 10 billion offspring in just 24 hours! Fortunately soil conditions are very different—not least because there are predators—and things are much less hectic!

Read the article in Autumn – Week 2.