An excellent manual for understanding how soil life affects plants, which in turn affects the nutrition we humans are able to obtain from our food. Phillips is an orchardist, so many of his refernces relate to his apple trees, however this is applicable to any sustainable farming endeavor.
I had taken Plant Physiology years ago, and so was able to skim over much of the 2nd chapter, which my partner was struggling thru. His struggle was not so much the language the author used, which is user-friendly, but because the concepts were new & he wanted to understand them completely, not just gloss over. From my perspective, I was surprised at how much has been learned about soil life interactions in the years since I studied it. I had been under the impression that mycorrhizal fungi only coexisted with a few species, and that they were more parasitic than mutually beneficial. Now I learn of fungi and bacteria species which are necessary partners in a plant's ability to access nutrients.
Includes resources (and I will be checking one of these which purports to list which plant species have mycorrhizal associations), glossary, chapter notes (which are somewhat of an aside, explaining a bit more of what he said), bibliography, index. ( )