Undies under dirt teach students about soil health By JOAN KITE Environmental Science students learned a valuable lesson about soil health when they buried several pairs of Fruit of Loom men’s underwear in the campus lawn in an innovative class titled, “Soil Your Undies.” “Everybody had a chuckle,” said Professor on Loan Dr. Tom Byl, who conducted the experiment with the
24 AgLINK | Spring 2022
On this page, Environmental Science Juniors Tyrese Stanford and Trenton Jones dig a hole to bury the brand new cotton briefs in the campus soil. Photo courtesy of Tom Byl. On the next page, Aria McElroy holds up a pair of briefs that were dug up six weeks later from the campus soil to demonstrate the amount of decomposition created by the bacteria in the soil. Photo by Joan Kite
help of Vanderbilt Director of Research Initiatives Dr. Chris Vanags and TSU Associate Professor Dr. Bill Sutton. Six weeks later, the students dug up the underwear they had buried only to discover them in different stages of decomposition. The less cotton existed, the healthier the soils.
