... bacteria. These organisms give freshly tilled soil that rich earthy smell, due to the presence of the genus Streptomyces, which may comprise 70 to 90 percent of the total actinomycete population in a given soil. Compared with bacteria and fungi, actinomycetes are generally much slower-growing organisms. Normally, large actinomycete populations are associated with soils containing significant organic matter or with compost piles. Fungi are capable of forming an extensive network of mycelium, often called hyphae. Hyphae can be a few inches or several thousand feet in size. Broken into small pieces, hyphae enable fungi to reproduce and grow, which makes determining fungal populations difficult (Winfield, 1995). The presence or availability of preferred food sources for microorganisms tends to dictate their abundance. There may be hundreds of millions to billions of microbes in a single gram (Table 1). The most numerous microbes in soil are the bacteria followed in decreasing ...

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