How cool - Love the stuff crossing my feed now

Plants don’t just absorb nutrients — they farm and feed on soil microbes.

Research led by Professor James F. White Jr. at Rutgers University has shown that many plants engage in a process called the rhizophagy cycle — a natural mechanism where roots attract beneficial microbes, internalise them, and extract nutrients directly from them before releasing them back into the soil to repeat the cycle.

This microbe‑root interaction helps plants:

• draw nutrients from living microbes

• stimulate root hair growth

• cycle nutrients more efficiently

• build deeper, healthier root networks

Understanding rhizophagy shifts how we think about plant nutrition — from passive uptake to active microbial cultivation.

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