Mycorrhiza

What is mycorrhiza?

Beneath a healthy forest lies a hidden partnership older than trees themselves. Mycorrhiza — from the Greek for "fungus-root" — is the union of plant roots with specialised soil fungi. The fungi weave a fine network of threads, far thinner and far more far-reaching than any root, through the soil. They draw in water and nutrients such as phosphorus that the plant could never reach alone, and deliver them to the root. In exchange, the plant hands over a share of the sugars it makes from sunlight.

This is not a rare arrangement but the norm: the great majority of land plants, and almost all trees, live in partnership with mycorrhizal fungi. The network can even link many plants together underground, letting them share resources and signals — the living fabric that writers have called the "wood wide web".

For soil, mycorrhiza is a sign and a source of health. Where it flourishes, water and nutrients circulate; where the soil has been sterilised by heavy tillage or chemicals, it is lost, and plants struggle.

How Terra Humana understands it

Terra Humana sees the soil not as a passive medium but as a living community, and mycorrhiza as one of its most important members. Restoration, in this view, is not only about the trees you can see but about rebuilding the invisible partnerships beneath them. A tree is only as healthy as the fungal network its roots can join.

This shapes how we work the land. Practices that tear the soil apart or poison its life — deep ploughing, synthetic fungicides, bare ground left to bake — break the mycorrhizal network. Gentle, covered, living soil lets it thrive. On dry ground especially, that fungal reach for water can decide whether a young tree survives its first summers.

Mycorrhiza in practice

At Sa Medada, near Jerzu, Terra Humana tends the soil in ways meant to keep its fungal life intact: minimal disturbance, permanent mulch and ground cover, and diverse plantings that give many fungi a home. Support species, compost and materials like charged biochar all help create the sheltered, living soil in which mycorrhiza flourishes.

This underground work is slow and largely unseen, but it is foundational. By protecting soil life rather than degrading it, Terra Humana gives the trees of Project Eden the best chance to establish on poor, dry ground — and gathers practical knowledge on how to bring a tired Mediterranean soil back to life.