Current perceptions and practices on soil microbiome and soil inoculants in the UK grower community

This study focuses on the importance of experiential knowledge to people’s perceptions of soil inoculants and understanding of the soil microbiome. It also highlights that there is a wide gap between research on microbial inoculants and its use in the grower community. This leads to many challenges and barriers which may prevent the successful uptake and application of current as well as future soil microbiome based technologies. The study suggests that future research needs to involve the growing community more strongly in product development and testing for technology success and uptake.The analysed data is from semi-structured interviews with farmers and urban growers on soil inoculants and soil microbiome and associated practices. Thematic analysis was done in NVivo to identify themes from the data. The ethics application was approved by the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences. The first section is "Soil microbiome", it explores participants’ descriptions of the soil and the soil microbiome and; their recognition and appreciation of its importance. The second section is "Practices around the soil microbiome". In this section, the practices used by participants, which are sub-grouped into the different themes, are discussed. The third section is "Assessing the soil microbiome and changes due to practices". This section discusses the different methods that participants use to assess changes in their soils. The last section is called "Soil inoculants" and it focusses on discussing different identified themes, which are important to the participants.

本研究聚焦于体验式知识对人们认知土壤菌剂（soil inoculants）以及理解土壤微生物组（soil microbiome）的重要性。研究同时指出，微生物菌剂相关研究与种植者群体的实际应用之间存在显著鸿沟，这带来了诸多挑战与阻碍，可能阻碍当前乃至未来基于土壤微生物组的技术的成功推广与应用。研究提出，未来的研究应更强有力地吸纳种植群体参与产品开发与测试，以推动技术的成功落地与推广。本研究的分析数据来源于针对农民与都市种植者开展的半结构化访谈，访谈内容围绕土壤菌剂、土壤微生物组及相关实践展开。研究采用NVivo软件进行主题分析，从数据中提炼核心主题。本研究的伦理申请已通过动物与植物科学系的审批。研究的第一章节为"土壤微生物组"，旨在探讨参与者对土壤及土壤微生物组的描述，以及他们对其重要性的认知与重视程度。第二章节为"围绕土壤微生物组的实践活动"，该章节将讨论参与者所采用的各类实践，并将其按不同主题进行分组梳理。第三章节为"评估土壤微生物组及实践带来的变化"，本章节探讨参与者用于评估其土壤变化的各类不同方法。最后一个章节名为"土壤菌剂"，重点围绕已识别出的、对参与者而言至关重要的各类不同主题展开讨论。