Dear Pierrick

It's a large discussion that you have openned.

In modern fields, the problem is that we are using selected plants, hybrids and clonal and the yield has been increased with lost of other capacities such as the proper used of nutrients from soils

t's also correct that in our fields, the amount of organic matter is poor mainly due to the used of chemical fertilizers.and pestisides.

are the wild plant more effective to get nutrients from the mineral fraction of soil than selected plants ?

I will answer yes because they have lost part of their capacity but also because the "wild plants" are leaving with other plants, bacteria and fungi which are working together to get nutrients and water from soil and to be stronger against pathogens.

Thank you Christophe for taking time to help me on this subject!

I thought the same thing as you.

But I would like to go one step further and know if this capacity of "wild plants" is higher enough to use it instead of current cover crops in fields ?

Would there be an interest to use them for restarting a cycle of fertility on degraded soils ? or this capacity is not different enough to be of interest ?

For example, about the capacity of modern crops to cooperate with microbes for nutrition, I've also read in some scientific articles that modern cultivar (of tomato and lettuce...) don't seem to be less able to make symbiosis with some species of mycorrhizal fungi than older cultivar or "wild type" cultivar...

So I wonder if modern crops will be able to cooperate with soil microbes if we use the good practices (no till, cover crops, supplies of organic matter...)

Have you some informations about :

- the lowest ability to properly use nutrients from the soil of selected plants compared to "wild plants"?

- quantitative aspect that would illustrate this ? (articles, exemples, personal knowledge, colleagues...?)

The utilization of nutrients from  mineral sources depends on the plant potential to release the desired enzymes or organic acids to breakdown the mineral salts into plant available form. Moreover, it also depends on the rhizosphere environment created by the growing plants ( may be desired and wild ) to build  compatible environment to grow beneficial organisms which can mobilize the mineral nutrients for plant nutrition . Therefore, it can not be taken into granted that wild plants would be exploit more nutrients from the soil mineral fractions than selected plants.

It depends, if the plant is selected for that specific location it could be as efficient in extracting nutrients from the soil as wild plants. In this case, the yield could be a lot higher than what you get from wild plants. 

Friederike,

Do you know some exemples of crops that have been selected for that capactity ? Are they marketed in Europe ?

Hello Pierrick,

seed companies conduct such research on location all the time all over the world. Often varieties that have a slightly lower yield are better suited for more extreme locations. On very extreme locations that could be a wild plant. The aim here would be to optimise the yield. For example you might look up this crop challenge from Syngenta.

https://www.ideaconnection.com/syngenta-crop-challenge/

I have attached a paper on how they select soybeans in the American midwest.

I hope this helps a little bit.