Plant diversity was the foundation upon which the ancient Mayan civilization was built. Growing beans, maize, and squash together created healthier crops and dark, fertile earth, and enabled successive generations to rotate crops through the same plots without depleting the soil.
“I always wondered about the underlying mechanisms,” says Alexandre Jousset, from the Georg August University in Göttingen, Germany. “These agricultural practices weren’t used in Europe, and I always wondered about the comparative outcomes.”
This is why Jousset was captivated with the Jena Experiment—a series of biodiverse grassland plots in Germany that have been continuously maintained since 2002, allowing researchers to study the impacts of species richness and diversity on soil fertility. Thanks to Jena data, we know that plant diversity increases microbial activity, and that beneficial bacteria like Pseudomonas fluorescens fight soil-borne plant diseases.
Yet despite these findings, soil cultivation is still more of an art than a science. ...
