It's interesting that so many of the old prescriptive practices on soil and farm management are being debunked. It used to be that farmers were told they had to eliminate all weeds, till the soil annually to aerate it and fertilize routinely. Today we know, that tilling disturbs the natural soil structure, especially the mycorrhiza, and fertilization reduce mycorrhization. Using cover crops favours arbuscular mycorrhiza funghi. We are trying to disturb the soil as little as possible. We have also set aside swaths of land as a natural habitat to encourage wildflowers and grasses as well as insects and bees. It seems to be working.
