
The negative impacts of increased leakiness of the soil system include nutrient loss to the atmosphere and rivers. (Image source: StockSnap/Pixabay)
Founded on more than 50 years’ worth of data from a unique field experiment, researchers have demonstrated that common farming practices drain the soil of carbon, altering the structure of soils’ microscopic habitat and the genetics of microbes living within it, according to the team of microbiologists and physicists led by Rothamsted Research