Patent ID: 9315849
Filing Date: 2016-04-19
CPC Classification: C12Q,G01N

Claim Text:
1. A method of determining the microbial population of a sample of soil or compost, comprising (a) measuring a volume of the sample; (b) solubilizing microbes in the sample in a known volume of water comprising salt and/or detergent to form a microbial solution, separate from soil; (c) compensating for pigments in the microbial solution, if necessary, by adding a bleaching agent; (d) filtering the microbial solution through a filter allowing passage only of microorganisms and not soil to produce a filtrate comprising microorganisms approximately five microns in diameter or less; (e) measuring turbidity, reflectance or transmittance of the filtered microbial solution; and (f) determining the number of microbes in solution based upon the turbidity, reflectance or transmittance measurement by comparison to standard values of microbes based upon reference turbidity, reflectance or transmittance values.