We are working to characterize the microbial communities associated with turf grass roots and are currently work out a protocol to sample the bulk soil and rhizosphere separately. Due to the density of turf grass roots it has proven difficult to effectively separate the bulk soil without also removing fine roots. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Hey there
It is indeed very hard to separate the rhizosphere from the bulk soil. I work on strawberry and there is the density of the roots also high. To collect the rhizosphere I use a phosphatebuffer. I try to clean the roots as much as possible untill there are only very small soil particles left on the roots. I place these roots in a phosphate buffer and vortex so all the soil particles come loose. After that I poor the solution trough a 100ųm sieve. Then I centrifuge the samples and I pour the supernatant away. The pellet at the bottom is then the rhizosphere. You can find the article I used in the attachement. Then I sieve the rest of the soil (with still some roots in it) over a 0.5cm sieve so the most of the roots are gone to collect some bulk soil but it is very hard get all the roots out of the sample.
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