I know its not that sexy, but soil is a hugely diverse ecosystem that is barely understood. There is lots of science to be done trying to classify and work out the mechanics of how nutrient is filters transmuted and transported

It we want to feed the world, when that world is throwing more extreme weather at us, we need to work out how to do companion planting at scale. (think how east coast indians did farming) IF we can make practical farm robots, we can not only remove the need for herbiscides (direct manual intervention, ie physically weeding buy pulling out the seedlings) but also keep ground cover even after cropping, meaning much less water loss.

Soil degradation is a real threat. the way we farm now means we have massive monocultures, large tracks of land that are bare for weeks on end. All of this requires lots of inputs to be productive. The promise of non-pesticide farming is that you get much richer soil, because you're not killing off the stuff that lives there.

But we need to understand what makes a soil productive, however that changes based on location and crops.

Note: coauthor Toby Kiers received the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement of 2026. She also created SPUN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_the_Protection_of_...

Article is a bit short. Here's a few more to flesh out the topic and the plant, tho honestly only by a smidge (none of these links require javascript enabled)

https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/botany/news/plant-pre...

https://www.earth.com/news/native-fungi-native-trees-plants-...

https://matjournals.net/pharmacy/index.php/IJPPR/article/vie...

https://ijpsr.com/?action=download_pdf&postid=97498

Maybe it is best to think of many plants as photochemical food factory extensions for mycorrhizal fungi. Some plants can do without but many will suffer without a specific mycorrhizae.

Nice looking fern at left of the scientist in the image appears to be Microsorum pustulatum, aka "Kangaroo fern", a climber/spreading rhizome.

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