Hey everyone!
Main Update
I just wanted to let people know this blog is moving to www.AggregoData.com (my business website). You don't need to do anything - I will transfer those of you who have already signed up. The vermimicrobiomeproject url will still forward to the blog. All of the current posts here already exist over there. It just doesn't make sense for me to pay to host 2 websites.
Detailed updates
1) I'm still here - I've just been focusing on my family lately. I'm not sure how all you parents out there stay so productive. My youngest, Osten is 11 months old now and my daughter Vera is already 4. She was born right when this project was funded so it's easy to keep track of how long I've been at this.
2) The Virginia Biological Farming Conference was amazing and I had a wonderful time. I had a lot of great discussions about the role of biology in farming. My presentation (as you probably might have guessed) had too much science. I overestimated the how much people generally knew about vermicomposting. For those of you commercial vermi-producers - there is still a huge potential market as the farming community learns more about it. There is still a ton of education that needs to be done to increase adoption of biological practices at all scales of farming and gardening.
3) Aggrego Data is the company I started after the VMP grant ended in order to continue to apply for grants, provide consulting services, and develop agriculturally relevant DNA sequencing reports. I have been doing some sequencing and reports for people who have asked, and I have been learning a ton from doing it. So a huge thank you to those who have supported me so far.
4) The sequencing report is still in development (example report coming soon) but it has come a long way. The key part that is left to finish is the beneficial organisms analysis which identifies potential plant growth promoting organisms and associated beneficial function they contain. This analysis is currently based on over 300 peer reviewed journal articles and growing (yes I read them all).
I am working turning all of this information into a database and automating the process. Each report currently takes me hours to analyze and complete and not scalable. We will hopefully announce a launch of the V1.0 report this year and offer some kind of launch sale. The current retail price is $125.
5 ) What you can expect in future blog posts:
Opinion on bacteria to fungi ratios
How Many bacteria are in 1g vermicompost? My first try with quantitative sequencing
My first live youtube interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TLaGRuvsI4)
Upcoming 5 year consulting project with Biofiltro measuring long term soil health benefits of large scale vermicompost application
How does the microbiome of thermophilic compost compare to vermicompost
The microbiome of leachate.
I hope you all continue to read along. The next notifications will come from aggregodata.com