This is interesting but doesn't add N to the system so is unlikely to reduce N use. Farmers will fertilize and take advantage of the yield gains, just as with any breeding gain.
Again, plant diversity is not the source of benefits.
"The presence of individual species, rather than diversity per se, determined the soil binding capacity of the system."
Open access.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
I don’t have a deeper message other than: Food and farming issues almost always involve tradeoffs. I wish people would grapple with the tradeoffs rather than retreat to vibes and ideology. END
Venn diagram showing nearly full overlap between 1) Organic, 2) Agroecology, and 3) Regenerative agriculture.
Why do organic, agroecology, and regenerative ag all look so similar?
Because they're built on the same foundation: pop ecology; notions about nature that feel intuitive but don't hold up to scrutiny.
csanr.wsu.edu/pop-ecology/
Me too.
Diagram showing how plant species identity is much less important for structuring soil bacterial communities than pH, organic carbon, and oxygen levels.
One of the many interesting points. Look how far down plant species is in terms of structuring soil bacterial communities.
This is one of the most clear‑headed soil microbiome papers I’ve read. No hype, just solid science. You might be shocked by how much we still don’t know about soils.
By @noahfierer.bsky.social
Unfortunately, not open access. www.nature.com/articles/nrm...
Everything after conversion = organic, sustainable, regenerative, biodynamic, permaculture, and anything else we do after conversion, except for returning it to nature.
Imperfect land sparing, with only 30% of land spared devoted to conservation is still better than land sharing. Why? Because the worst thing ag does to nature is convert it to cropland. Everything after conversion is insignificant in comparison.
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
"Nature knows best" sounds wise. But we invented farming because nature didn't know best for growing crops. Pop ecology's tradeoff-free farming doesn't hold up to scrutiny. csanr.wsu.edu/pop-ecology/
As I posted on the other site: Important nuance on regenerative agriculture: livestock-only systems can meet far more regen‑ag goals than crop-producing operations. We should treat them as distinct when evaluating outcomes.
With crop-only systems, best bet=no-till+cover crops+high residue cash crops
Graph of caterpillar population over time showing four spikes with levels near zero in between, from 1985-2025.
3. Nature isn't "balanced."
Real pest dynamics look like spikes, not balance.
Even in systems with successful biocontrol, stable pest populations are rare.
Weather, moisture, and resource limits often drive outcomes.
Not pop ecology but the ecology of reality.
Side-by-side photos of two cover crops from above, one with many species and one a monoculture (one species).
2. More biodiversity isn’t always better.
A biodiverse 12‑way cover crop mix won’t automatically beat a simple, well‑chosen single species.
Same with intercropping—sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn’t.
What matters is the right plant doing the right job for your field.
Photo of a combine harvesting wheat and loading it into a wagon for export out of the field.
1. Nutrients don’t magically recycle on a farm.
Nature can keep nutrients in the system because nothing leaves. But when we haul grain or hay off the field, those nutrients leave too.
If we don’t replace them with fertilizer, manure, etc., we mine the soil in the long-term.
Pop ecology gives us appealing slogans—“nature knows best,” “the balance of nature”—but fails to reflect reality and so misleads agriculture. Here's what the ecology of reality actually tells us.
My latest... csanr.wsu.edu/pop-ecology/
Combine harvesting wheat, loading into wagon. Photo from above.
1. Nutrients don’t magically recycle on a farm.
Nature can keep nutrients in the system because nothing leaves. But when we haul grain or hay off the field, those nutrients leave too.
If we don’t replace them with fertilizer, manure, etc., we mine the soil in the long-term.
Not even any potatoes.
Sorry, but more sustainable farming isn’t more natural farming. It’s farming that doesn’t overrun so much of the earth. That means higher-yield farming that makes more food per acre, so it doesn’t need so many acres to make food.
Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪
The same in soils, and just like the probiotics, farmers are applying microbes to the soil to fix them, but only those microbes that can be mass produced cheaply and store well.
Much of this applies to the nonsense I see about and sometimes within agriculture.
You're a step above the toilet - hold on to that position through the teenage years and you'll be golden.
It's refreshing to see a scientist ask for comments and critique of their own work on social media. This is how science advances.
What to make of this?
"Seventy per cent of the observed significant effects on
the diversity of bacterial gene groups and 84% of the effects on fungal gene groups were positive."
I have not heard of anyone planning on losing glyphosate, so it will be a crisis if it happens quickly. My guess is that if it goes away, it will probably be for homeowners first, then phased out for farming over time.
There are definitely alternative herbicides, but not good ones; more toxic, more expensive, etc.
Glyphosate was a unicorn among herbicides, but we have overused it and now are litigating it out of use.
Here's the open access paper that this was partly based on. acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
New Extension publication: Cover Crop Mixtures vs. Monocultures: What the Research Shows.
pubs.extension.wsu.edu/product/cove...
What will happen to glyphosate? Nice report.
www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/the-clock-...
