This isn't a watch-and-hope course. 

You'll work directly with a dedicated mentor in true 1:1 practice sessions, building real skill with real samples from your own land or context. Knowledge checks after each session help you and your mentor track your progress and ensure you're ready to move forward with confidence.

You'll also join a growing international community of soil microscopy practitioners through regular webinars designed specifically for this course.

• ✔ Dedicated 1:1 sessions with your mentor
• ✔ Knowledge checks after every session
• ✔ Expanded course manual with additional areas of study
• ✔ Student-friendly exam format
• ✔ Access to the full mentorship team through scheduled office hours
• ✔ Unlimited mentoring support — no hours tracked or capped

 The amount of time required depends on your other commitments. Some students have completed all 4 Advanced courses (the Completer Practicum) in 1 year, but most take longer, with the average being about two years.

We provide a 30-day no questions asked money-back guarantee. 

Every AP Course provides the opportunity to receive a certificate of completion.

This course is built for farmers, growers, and consultants who want to go beyond guesswork. If you're applying compost or biological amendments and want to know whether they're actually working, this is where you start.

If you have been using conventional methods for years and need to know how to heal your land, welcome.

This course is for anyone drawn to improving our world's soils, growing more abundant and nutritious foods, and understanding how our actions impact the invisible web of life all around us. 

Academics, Farmers, Homesteaders, Gardeners, Scientists, Policy Makers, & soil and climate-conscious people from across the globe have trusted the microscopy training and teachings from our founder, Dr. Elaine Ingham, for decades. 

This course gives you the skills you need to see the living world beneath our feet using a microscope. 

For Soil Food Web work, we use a standard biological compound light microscope. It should have a trinocular head; objective lenses with 4x, 10x, and 40x magnification; and an Abbe condenser. Microscopes come with 10x eyepieces as a standard, thereby providing 40x, 100x, and 400x total magnifications.

Your camera must provide a viewable area measuring at least 200 µm wide. It should provide detailed images and relatively smooth video, which is important for viewing moving organisms. Therefore your camera should be rated at least 5MP resolution, and should be equipped with USB 3.0 technology, connecting to a USB 3.0 port on your computer via a USB 3.0 cable. There are, however, cameras that perform well without the faster USB technology; for questions about particular models please contact the help desk.

A small camera FoV introduces several difficulties. Because it offers a smaller space in which to conduct observations and generate data, it results in greater data variability. Techniques can be applied to compensate for this, but they increase the complexity and, therefore, the time consumption of the soil assessment process. 

A smaller FoV narrows the focal plane, making it more difficult to view microbes, especially when they are of larger size and/or motile. Therefore, it also makes it impossible to capture the sort of high-quality images that are important in communicating with other technicians, with potential clients and the general public, and of course with your mentor/instructor.

Students must complete the Foundation Courses (FCs) with 90%+ overall AND be enrolled (have purchased) at least one AP program which is the Certified Lab-Tech Program (CLP), Consultant Training Program (CTP), and Grower Training Program (GTP).

Our Consultant Training Programs and Certified Lab Program are legacy names that have been replaced by our new Advanced programs. The educational material follows the same learning path, but we provide extended access to Mentor guidance and have renamed them to align more closely with what is learned in each section, rather than what career path someone may choose to pursue with the education they gain here. 

To claim that you are a Soil Food Web Consultant, one must complete and pass all four of our Advanced Courses: Soil Microscopy, BioComplete™ Compost, Biological Liquid Amendments, & Field Trial.

Currently, mentors are assigned based on their availability and paired with students in relation to their time zones and language preferences. All of our mentors are highly qualified.

You will need to have several pieces of equipment available to you in order to complete each stage. The precise budget will depend on the size of your final project and your current equipment access.. Your mentor will be able to advise you on equipment selection. The minimum requirements are likely to cost around $1,000.

We would love for you to invite your partner and anyone else who is interested in restoring our world's soils. They will, however, need to enroll as students separately. Currently, our system is designed for 1:1 interactions. You must be an enrolled student to take part in any meeting.