THE PRODUCTION OF ANTIBIOTICS IN SOIL

Antibiotic production in and around particles of plant debris in soil was studied. High yields of an antibiotic, shown by bioassay methods to be similar to gliotoxin, were obtained from wheat straws buried in a normal, unautoclaved; acid podsoc from Wareham Heath which had been inoculated with a strain of Trichoderma viride known to produce gliotoxin in culture media. Only a little of the antibiotic was produced in the soil immediately surrounding the straws. Much less was produced in straws buried in John Innes potting compost and none at all in straws buried in a Kettering loam. In no case was an antibiotic detected in straws from un‐inoculated soils. If, however, the Kettering loam was acidified or, alternatively, the straws themselves were acidified and then buried in untreated Kettering loam, good yields of the antibiotic were obtained from straw extracts. Conversely, when the pH of Wareham Heath soil was raised by addition of calcium hydroxide to the soil no antibiotic activity could be detected in the straws. This suggests that the pH of the soil and of the food substrate has a profound effect on production of an antibiotic, assumed to be gliotoxin, by T. viride. The results obtained suggested that increased production of gliotoxin after autoclaving the straws was due to a decrease in the pH of the straws rather than to a release of nutrients.