Why does the soil of tropical rain forests make poor farmland?
The rainforest is an extremely efficient recycling system. All the nutrients are in the system. Anything organic that falls to the forest floor is quickly broken down by a symbiotic fungal and root system. There are no real nutrients more than 1/2 inch below the forest floor. The richness of rainforests that create so much diversity is in the whole system and the way it works together. Things grow ON the soil, not in them.
