Q1. Can you have ‘bad’ or too many of a particular soil microbe present.

Answer: Not really. There can be an imbalance among species because of external sources of not necessarily appropriate fertilisers, etc. For example, when high levels of salts are applied eg Ca or PO4, then there is a big increase in those species needed to deal with this chemistry. Eventually the populations will return to environmental levels. If the full soil food web is present, then members of the population will utilise excesses in some species and release plant available nutrients for plants to use. It is generally only a soil in trouble that has an imbalance of microbes.

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