[markdown]

> In short, plant roots actually love sand, silt and clay, and actually don't like organic matter around their roots as it causes rot.

IMO it really depends on what you're trying to grow. I live in the tropics and there are a lot of tropical plants that do indeed thrive when the soil is heavy on the organic matter. I suspect it depends on how far/long these tropical plants have been bred away from their rainforest origins.

[thomasfromcdnjs]

Yeah, I think your absolutely correct.

Gardening is actually quite hard in this regard. Everyone is always sharing tips and tricks, for different crops, different species of said crops, different climates, different soils, different hemispheres, different sides of a mountain etc

I think there will be a cool database where you can filter by those factors one day but not sure we are quite there just yet.

[virtuscience]

"a cool database where you can filter by those factors" => this is one of the inspirations for Greg, the plant care community I've been helping to build after leaving Tinder.

Think Waze, for plants. We're about to launch on ProductHunt and HN, if you're interested you can check us out at https://greg.help.

[thomasfromcdnjs]

Awesome, will check it out!

Edit: Checked it out

Will install it and run it on my office plants.

Outside I am a dirty gardener and tend to just let things run it's course so won't help me much there.

[hinkley]

Woodland plants also expect organic matter in the soil column. It's one of the complaints about 'modern' forestry practices that leave no mature wood on the ground to decay. Real forests have rotting logs in them.

It's really conventional farmers concentrating on annuals that want something different. They're growing prairie plants.