More than twenty scientists mainly from Israel and the UK are attending a 3-day workshop at The Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen next week, focusing on state-of-the-art methods for assessing soil quality.

The workshop takes place from the 26th to 28th September at the Macaulay’s Craigiebuckler campus, Aberdeen, and is supported by the British Council (Israel).

The main focus of the workshop is the MicroResp™ technique, developed at the Macaulay, a unique microtitre-plate based respiration system which allows multiple whole soil, sediment, biological tissue or water samples to be analysed at the same time. MicroResp™ allows users to test a broad range of experimental parameters in a rapid, reliable way, with the 96-well format allowing many combined tests to be carried out simultaneously, where this would previously have taken weeks of laboratory time at the micro/macrocosm level.

Dr Fiona Moore from the Macaulay explained some of the applications of the system: “This system can be used to test the impact of pollutants such as heavy metals, pesticides, organic pollutants; changes due to land management practice such as waste recycling; the digestibility of animal feedstuff; and food spoilage, among many other applications.

“MicroResp™ could be a useful tool for regulatory bodies such as SEPA , the Environment Agency , US EPA , environmental management companies, water authorities, analytical testing laboratories and the agrochemical and pharmaceutical industries.” It has now been patented and the kit is being sold world-wide by the Institute.

The Macaulay Institute is the premier land use research institute in the UK. Two hundred and seventy staff are based at the Macaulay Institute at Craigiebuckler in Aberdeen. The Macaulay Institute aims to be an international leader in research on the use of rural land resources for the benefit of people and the environment and is involved in research across the globe – from Scotland to Chile and China. More about the Macaulay Institute can be found at www.macaulay.ac.uk.

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