Cam has been collaborating with university colleagues at University of Mississippi and Surrey University to study the benefits of cultivating tea in ecologically diverse forests. We are studying the living soil, and a variety of ecological collaborations that occur when tea grows in diverse ecosystems and improve the quality of the tea.
Tea leaf samples are prepared for analysis of cooperative endophytic fungi that help plants.
Our Collaborator Dr. Erik Hom of the University of Mississippi working with a student to extract soil samples from sample cores for DNA extraction and soil microbiome analysis. Below a soil core is being cut open so DNA samples from different depths in the soil can be isolated for microbiome study.