This week, our field assistants finish their fourth and already last round of this year on the fields of our participating farmers. They come back for bird monitoring in winter, but now that the soil is getting wetter, they can also delve into soil life. They are concentrating on nematodes and earthworms.

For the nematodes, they take some soil samples 10 cm deep, from which they take a subsample back to the university for further analysis. For the earthworms, they dig out a number of 20x20x20 cm quadrants, from which they then filter the earthworms. They also take the earthworms with them and weigh them by sample the next day and determine the species them later.

Thank you to our field technicians and their helpers, who are not afraid to get their hands dirty.