About Us

Our Mission
At Mycoscope, we believe that healthy soil is the foundation of thriving plants, thriving farms, and a thriving planet. Our mission is to make the invisible world of the soil microbiome visible, understandable, and actionable, so that growers can move beyond conventional agriculture and build living, regenerative ecosystems.

Who We Are
Mycoscope, LLC is a Soil Microbiome Testing and Consulting Company founded to help growers of all types, from conventional farmers to organic gardners to grass lawn-mowing homeowners, help their plants thrive with the help of their living soil. Using cutting-edge soil microscopy, we analyze your soil (or compost) for a rich array of microbial life: fungi, bacteria, protozoa, and nematodes. We quantify not just their presence, but their relative quantities, including key soil health metrics like the Fungal-to-Bacterial Ratio. 

We work with growers to first test and establish a baseline, then improve the health of your soil by increasing the usually struggling fungal populations. This includes inoculation with healthy, fungal-dominant compost made by Mycoscope's microbiome experts as well as reducing reliance on chemical inputs and swapping out harmful practices that degrade the land such as deep tilling for sustainable practices that preserve the soil microbiome and ultimately bolster plant health. 

When the perfect soil microbiome is cultivated, plants will outcompete weeds, fend off diseases with hearty immune systems, and be completely indigestible to pests by developing the natural defenses provided by more complex phytochemicals. Something that's only possible when a plant is truly thriving in a living, symbiotic ecosystem.

What We Measure
When you send us a soil sample, we provide a detailed report that includes:

• Fungal biomass
• Bacterial biomass
• Actinobacteria biomass
• Amoebae and flagellate populations
• Ciliate populations
• Nematode populations, broken down by feeding type

One of our key indicators is the Fungal-to-Bacterial Biomass Ratio (or F:B Ratio for short). This number is a key soil health indicator that reveals the ecological stage of your soil and determines what types of plants will thrive in it. Most vegetable crops thrive around 1:1, while weeds tend to dominate soils with very low fungal biomass (0.3 or lower), and mature tree systems prefer much higher fungal dominance (up to 10,000:1 for old-growth forests).

We will work with you to achieve the perfect F:B Ratio, which usually requires preserving the fragile and sensitive fungi and encouraging them through compost inoculation, feeding of fungal foods, and cessation of excessive tilling activities.

Why This Matters
Traditional soil tests focus on nutrients (NPK, pH, etc.), which are absolutely important — but they often miss the living ecosystem in the soil. Without a healthy soil food web, nutrients don’t cycle efficiently, structure suffers, and plants struggle, even if you’re technically “feeding” them the right fertilizer. At Mycoscope, we help you uncover and nurture that living system.

How It Works

1. You collect a soil sample following our standardized sampling protocol. 
2. You send the sample to us.
3. We analyze it under the microscope, counting and measuring microbial biomass and populations.
4. We provide a comprehensive soil health report, delivered straight to your inbox, with charts and interpretation of your soil biology, as well as recommendations on how to work towards a stronger soil microbiome.
5. After establishing a baseline, we recommend practices to put into place and experiments to run to improve your soil microbiome and monitor it through continued testing.

Consulting / Soil Health Services
We don’t just test and walk away. For farmers and gardeners who want to make long-term improvements, our Soil Health Consultation service offers:

• Baseline testing across different fields or beds (including compost)
• A tailored plan to build high-quality compost (or compost teas) suited to your goals
• Follow-up testing before and after application, so you can track changes in your soil microbiome
• Ongoing diagnostics, troubleshooting, and support until you reach meaningful improvement in soil life

Why Trust Us
We combine time-tested ecological insights with modern scientific rigor. Our microscopy-based method gives you quantifiable data, not just guesswork. And because we deliver not just numbers, but explanations and actionable advice, we help you make real, biological change — not just superficial adjustments.

Our Vision for the Future
We envision a world where soil health testing is standard practice, where every gardener and farmer sees not just dirt, but a living community. By measuring and improving soil biology, we believe we can help regenerate ecosystems, reduce reliance on synthetic inputs, and create more resilient, productive land systems.

Get in Touch
Whether you’re just curious about what’s in your soil, considering a soil biology analysis for your whole farm, or ready to work with us on a long-term regenerative plan — we’d love to hear from you. Use our Contact page to start the conversation.