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Comment by relax88 | Hacker News Reader

Mycorrhiza are not a new discovery, nor are soil bacteria playing an imporant role. I'm not sure any of this is really "new".

Amateur cannabis growers have been brewing compost tea to enhance the bacterial/fungal/nematode populations in soil for over a decade.

Even in the world of industrial-scale agriculture no-till with cover crops is becoming increasingly popular.

I'm not sure what new things this research really offers besides perhaps attempts to identify specific fungi / bacteria that can enhance yeilds?

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Not all research needs to be new or ground breaking. multiple studies on a subject, from various different people and institutions, using various methods are good. While nothing new and ground breaking here, it does reaffirm the already known, and we can confidently say that recent scientific studies continue to reinforce soil bacteria being good for crops.

> Amateur cannabis growers have been brewing compost tea to enhance the bacterial/fungal/nematode populations in soil for over a decade.

A decade? LOL amateur cannabis growers are johnny-come-latelies. This stuff was written about almost a century ago, and has been practiced widely for decades. The only thing that's happened in the past decade is that amateur (and pro) gardeners have started blogging and vlogging.

Pretty sure people grew and bred cannabis since thousands of years ago.

That's not the type of people he's talking about. Only a decade he said, referring to Americans who have only been able to openly grow cannabis over the past decade.

There was also some information on the ecological dynamic that leads to nutrient release by those bacteria, and how they interact with the fungi. I thought the fact that some bacteria could use the hyphae to transport themselves, finding and killing a secondary bacteria that is found on the fungi was pretty interesting.

Yeah, I read it and tried to figure out what was new.

Like above, this has been known for decades. (maybe centuries aha)

Would be nice if they can figure out if the fungi's intentionally attract bacteria as per their prediction.

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