Summary
ABSTRACT Soil degradation and the loss of organic carbon threaten agricultural productivity and climate resilience worldwide. Yet, practical on‐farm tools for assessing soil microbial activity, an essential indicator of soil health, remain scarce. Most available methods require laboratory infrastructure or scientific field equipment, thus limiting their use in on‐farm monitoring and in resource‐constrained regions. Here, we present a low‐cost assay that quantifies microbial respiration through the CO 2 ‐induced colour change of a pH‐indicator, evaluated via smartphone imaging. Tested across 13 sites in Eastern Austria with different land uses (conventional farming, conservation farming and field margin soils) and substrate amendments (glucose, milled alfalfa and milled straw), the method r
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