[neverkn0wsb357]

Okay, but this has been known for a while hasn’t it? I remember reading a statement like this in “Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms” and that book was published in 1993.

Is the reason this is note worthy the % amount calculated by the study?

[TaylorAlexander]

Yes this has been known for a while. However it is often important to have scientific studies backing well-known information. Well-known information is often wrong, and there are also people who are familiar with the prevalence of the knowledge but are unconvinced or misinformed. In these cases, studies help avoid confusion and advance our collective knowledge.

In this case I am sure earlier studies have been done, but I would not write off further exploration just because a topic has been previously studied.

[millzlane]

I think it's the fact that it was applied to a field.

"A team of researchers from the universities of Zurich and Basel, Agroscope, and the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) has now shown for the first time on a large scale that applying mycorrhizal fungi in the field works. The fungi were mixed into the soil before sowing crops on 800 trial plots at 54 maize farms in northern and eastern Switzerland."

[randomdata]

The regional maize yield record produced for a growing contests is only 25% higher than we can see from general production without meticulous care for the sake of a contest. Hard to fathom that this is moving the needle by 40%.

[RetroTechie]

Article doesn't state yield w/ respect to best-yielding fields. But up to 40% higher yields on fields that had a good deal of pathogen fungi in the soil ("unhealthy" soils, if you will).

So this is not upping yields 40% across the board. More about bringing poorer-performing fields up to the level of better-performing ones.

Personally I think a well-managed field wouldn't need this type of inoculation, as it would have the beneficial fungi in its soil already (and these research findings seem to indicate this). The #1 thing there would be to disturb that soil as little as possible (like, no-till farming).

For less-well managed fields, this might be a quick 'n dirty fix to undo some of the shortcomings in a field's condition.

[freddie_mercury]

"Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can enhance plant nutrient uptake and reduce plant stress; yet, large-scale field inoculation trials with AMF are missing, and so far, results remain unpredictable."

It's the second sentence of the abstract.

They conducted a large scale field trial of 54 fields.

[voisin]

It is also written about extensively in The Holistic Orchard.