Several groups of Neiker are working on the research project URAGAN, which aims a rational use of antibiotics in livestock. In the case of the Soil Microbial Ecology Group, we are concerned about the potential dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes and mobile genetic elements as a result of the application of animal manure in agricultural soil. In the short term, we plan to establish a pot experiment where we will apply several manures and grow different crops. We will use high-throughput qPCR to simultaneously analyze a great variety of antibiotic resistance genes both in soil and plants. To this purpose, this week we have collected manure and slurry in two dairy farms under organic and intensive management.
