Farmers used to sniff their soil to gauge how healthy it was. According to ecologist Rosa Boone, you can deduce a great deal from its smell: "The fungi and bacteria present in the soil are important for soil health and are responsible for the soil's smell. " Boone discovered that the smell of so...
Source: [Phys.org](https://phys.org/news/2026-09-soil-health.html)