Quoting Removed, click Modern View to seeJon, it's complicated.
If soil was dead, you would be absolutely correct, but healthy soil has trillions of microorganisms per cubic foot, which as part of their living make minerals such as phosphorus, potassium, manganese, magnesium, sulfur, copper, boron, selenium, zinc, iron, carbon, besides making a raft of other organic compounds, such as humic acid available to plants. Any compound such as salt from deep water irrigation, or a chemical that impairs or reduces the activity of those microorganisms is essentially "killing" the soil, and makes the addition of outside nutrients necessary. I personally know Certified Organic farmers who who have only brought in lime for their fields. Once in 20 years. Using green manures, livestock manures (fed from their own ground), and even selling hundreds of tons of grains and produce every year, on average their production has improved year over year.
In your model, that would be impossible. In living soil, properly managed, it's just the way things work. Old and his heirs can cut hay and sell it into eternity if he so chooses, as long as he doesn't take everything off as fast as it grows, and as long as he keeps the microbiome in his soil healthy.
Another part of the equation is that native plants have adapted very nicely to thrive on the soils and in the micro-climate of a given area. At one time, there were far more varieties of wheat than gopher holes in Kansas, more varieties of corn than crossroads in Illinois. The loss of genetic diversity in the "necessity" of getting the absolute highest yield (regardless of inputs required, or nutrition at harvest, or condition of soil afterward because that can be 'fixed' with further amendments), in addition to short rotations of crops in the pursuit of the efficiency of specialization, have contributed to that loss. It also opens the door to a catastrophic crop failure, as when the Irish put their full faith and trust in essentially one very productive variety of potato and it's near cousins. Imagine if some virus shows up that specifically attacks only RR plants. It can spread wildly because they are the dominant crop types. Ouch. Can you see where a lower yield year over year may well beat a year or more of no yield, especially if your life depends on it?
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Today's Featured Article - Third Brush Generators - by Chris Pratt. While I love straightening sheet metal, cleaning, and painting old tractors, I use every excuse to avoid working on the on the electrics. I find the whole process sheer mystery. I have picked up and attempted to read every auto and farm electrics book with no improvement in the situation. They all seem to start with a chapter entitled "Theory of Electricity". After a few paragraphs I usually close the book and go back to banging out dents. A good friend and I were recently discussing our tractor electrical systems when he stated "I figure it all comes back to applying Ohms Law". At this point
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