Dilution plate- and agar block methods were employed to study the effects of microwave irradiation on the isolation of soil actinomycetes. The results showed that: 1) Microwave irradiation could significantly increase the total quantity of isolated actinomycetes. With the increasing duration of microwave irradiation, the total quantity of actinomycetes in soils with high organic matter content tended to increase first and decrease then. This quantity on GA and HA culture medium increased by 8.3%-92.6% and 24.4%-108.5% when the irradiation lasted 3-15 minutes, but decreased by 62.1%-78.8% and 41.4%-79.8%, respectively when the irradiation lasted 18-24 minutes, in comparison with that on the control medium. Microwave irradiation showed no remarkable effects on the total quantity of actinomycetes in the soils with low organic matter content. 2) Microwave irradiation also exerted remarkable effects on the number of actinomycetes species. With the increase of irradiation duration, the actinomycetes species number in soils with high organic matter content appeared to increase first and decrease then. When the irradiation lasted 3-24 minutes, the newly identified actinomycetes species on GA and HA culture medium, which included rare actinomycete genera such as Promicromonospora and Streptoverticillium, took up 62.5%-85.7% and 66.7%-83.3% of all the actinomycetes species respectively, and the genus Streptmycete also had obvious variation. Soils with low organic matter content showed the similar tendency. 3) Microwave irradiation could exert remarkable effects on the percentages of antimicrobial actinomycetes strains to all test actinomycete strains. When the microwave irradiation lasted 6, 9, and 15 minutes, the percentages of antimicrobial antinomycetes strains on the culture mediums increased by 66.7%, 66.7%, and 83.3%, and the newly identified antimicrobial antinomycetes strains made up 70.0%, 90.0%, and 81.8% of all the antimicrobial antinomycetes strains, respectively.