Fertilizers carry a hidden cost for soil’s crucial microbes – using less as prices rise might pay off for farms in unexpected ways 29%
By Esther Ndumi Ngumbi0%
7/8/2026, 5:05:04 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 20 faulty reasoning types, including Indoctrination, Framing Effect, and Appeal to Nature, with Appeal to Authority as the most egregious example at 19.6% saturation with 157 hits. Analysis detected 1,169 faulty-reasoning hits from 801 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 39.4% and a BS Rank of 29% (15,619 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 71.40% of the article peer group.
Across North America, in places such as Illinois, Iowa and Texas, farmers are busy growing the crops the world depends on for food, fuel and fiber.
But as their tractors roll across fields, a pressing concern weighs heavily on many farmers: the rising cost of synthetic fertilizers, widely considered essential for crop production.
After an expensive spring, with the war in Iran restricting fertilizer and petroleum shipments and raising prices, farmers may be wondering whether they can cut back on fertilizer now and in the future to save money.
The answer has a lot to do with a hidden world beneath our feet, where billions of soil-dwelling, beneficial microbes help sustain productive, resilient and healthy crops and agricultural systems.
An agronomist examines the roots of a soybean plant.
Anatoliy Cherkas/iStock/Getty Images Plus
As a researcher working to uncover the hidden roles of beneficial soil microbes and understand how they improve crop productivity and strengthen plants’ resilience against drought and insect pests, I know that cutting down on fertilizers is not a bad thing.
In fact, studies suggest that using less fertilizer can boost this natural workforce.
Plants do not grow alone
Soils hold a vast and extraordinarily diverse hidden world teeming with billions of microbes that are essential for sustaining life on Earth and supporting productive and resilient crops.
A microscope image using dye shows microbe filaments, known as hyphae, around a plant root, and arbuscular mycorrhizae fungi inside the root.
Rajarshi Rit/The University of Burdwan, CC BY
Plants including corn, soybeans, wheat and tomatoes form intimate and mutually beneficial relationships with these soil-dwelling microbes.
Their partnerships help sustain both plant health and the microbial communities.
A notable group of beneficial soil microbes is arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria.
These soilborne microbes can colonize plant roots, living around the roots, on the plant surface or even inside plant tissue.
Some of the ways arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, often referred to as AM or AMF, help plants thrive.
Catherine N.
Jacott, Jeremy D.
Murray and Christopher J.
Ridout, 2017, CC BY
In exchange for shelter, nutrients and carbon-rich sugars that plants produce through photosynthesis, these microbes offer many benefits to plants.
They improve plant health and growth, increase yields and enhance the plant’s water and nutrient uptake.
They can also boost plants’ ability to withstand pathogens, plant-eating insects and diseases, and survive drought and flooding.
Research has shown that adding microbes, such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, near plant roots can increase plant biomass by nearly 50%.
That includes significantly increasing nitrogen absorption by about two-thirds and more than doubling phosphorus uptake, two of the most important nutrients for plant growth.
One analysis found that under drought stress, plants with beneficial microbes in or around their roots had nearly 50% higher growth than those without.
My own team’s research has shown that mycorrhizal fungi can alter chemicals released by plants in ways that are useful for repelling insects while attracting pollinators and insects’ natural enemies.
These chemicals can also alert plant neighbors of dangers and threats.
An animation shows how plants send carbon to microbes in and around their roots.
Sina R.
Schultes, et al., 2025, CC BY
Soil microbes are also associated with many aspects of soil quality and health.
They break down organic matter, cycle nutrients, suppress disease-causing pathogens and detoxify contaminants.
How fertilizers harm the microbe-plant relationship
Synthetic fertilizers have certainly played important roles in food and fiber production and increasing crop yields over the years.
However, excessive fertilizer use can quietly harm these beneficial soil microbe communities, in addition to fueling water pollution.
Studies have shown that overfertilizing can weaken the underground partnerships between plants and microbes that are fundamental to helping plants access nutrients and tolerate stress.
Too much nitrogen fertilizer can reduce the diversity and abundance of beneficial soil microbes.
Researchers have offered several explanations for why synthetic fertilizers harm soil microbes.
First, adding nutrients reduces the amount of carbon that plants send below ground to microbes.
This can lead to the loss of some fungal species or favor microbes that contribute little to plant health.
Fertilizing in economically strategic ways
With fertilizer costs high, I believe farmers, researchers and others involved in food production should use this moment to rethink how crops and soils are nourished.
The answer is not to abandon fertilizers but to find a balance between fertilizer use and nurturing the living soils and the billions of microbial communities that quietly sustain American and global agriculture.
In an era of extreme weather, climate uncertainty, geopolitical tensions and rising fertilizer costs, keeping soil healthy and nurturing the billions of microbes living there is not only necessary but also economically strategic.
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