Farmland often harbors a multitude of pathogens which attack plants and reduce yields. A Swiss research team has now shown that inoculating the soil with mycorrhizal fungi can help maintain or even improve yields without using additional fertilizers or pesticides. In a large-scale field trial, plant yield increased by up to 40%.
This article didn’t go into too much detail, but there are some good fungi you already use at home.
Trichoderma is super common and you want to supplement the soil around tomatoes for better yields. It has a symbiotic relationship with tomatoes and will also choke out other fungi that may cause harm to the plants. (It’s also the bane of mushroom farmers since it will colonize a substrate super quick. I am doing a heavy pasteurization on some coco coir as I type, actually.)
Then there is this one, which is super cool, A. oligospora, which will trap and consume nematodes. Unfortunately, you may have to introduce a nitrogen deficiency to see this behavior.
Fungi has had a symbiotic relationship with plants for millions of years and this is well known. Why this paper calls this experiment out now is curious.