It doesn't happen overnight but eventually regenerative ag can produce soils that produce ag yields much greater than they previously were able to get from traditional ag practices using synthetic fertilizers. If you look around some on all of the info on-line on regenerative ag and no-till farming you will see many, many success stories from farms who haven't applied any fertilizer in the last 10-20 years...and they say it can be accomplished anywhere in the world.
Or...take a look at the book that Osceola referenced in the OP:
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My plotting began on tired soil.
A small area. But weed "control", suppression was easy there.
Being it needed "help" it was targeted.
Five years , little gain.
The site was ag. Then fallow a couple decades (?) A good fifteen years anyways from what I gathered from a (not the) previous owner.
Great root systems. Good amount of what I'll call loam.
Compared to at home here a dozen miles away in the sand with a skin of loam built up after the past century...The site I work is great.
Because of where I began plotting , (how did it get in such poor condition?) I've suspected that breaking that layer of loam and plant roots will have a negative effect.
I'll plot this year where trails were cut and root raked. It's exposed.
During the five years I've mowed a particular area 2-3 times a year. That removed (or suppressed) the taller plants. Goldenrod ect..
That particular area is three times or more of that regular plot adjacent.
Despite rye and brassicas and whatever came up under the rye cover that was supposed to be clover , a good 80% of deer browsing (serious stuff , not the meandering sampling nibbling) is still that mowed area.
It did get some fertilizer and lime overlap in areas. Even tossed some fertilizer by hand on a couple spots to look for deer reaction in time.) But deer position in that mowed area seems more important than where lime /fertilizer landed on edges. Or where I broadcast some by hand.
No weed killer used on the entire site since I've owned it. Other than a shovel to dig a thistle, or kukri , or scissors. No turned soil.
The best attracting spot is still that fallow area near the original plot that is mowed on occasion.
From August (last mowing if rain has anything over sixish inches tall) on that area stays cropped by the few deer.
Maybe an inch and a half tall before it snowed heavy enough to cover it.
Tonnage wise , it's on top of the economic lowest cost of worked ground on site.
If not for the aesthetics and cover the balance of fallow areas preset , I'd be tempted to expand that mowed site. There are narrow mowed areas connected. Some will be plotted . But the deer treat the largest open area like a destination plot. Not due to browse as much as open space. Yet the most browse over the past five years is probably simply mowed prior fallow ground. All volunteer forbs , grass,stuff that does not dry out or drown and tolerates browsing and mowing when not browsed enough.
And , the self mulching (and mowing duff) still works.
I'll scratch up the original plot. Again.
Drag it till the weeds pout and try a perennial under a nurse crop again.
I'll feed it synthetics.
Next fall deer will go by both sides of it again. Sneaking on the trail one side.
And browsing on the mowed fallow area beyond the other side.
Even if the new areas being planted the first time this year do well. They're not the same as that area with a deep established root layer. Keeping stuff tender and diverse. Cheaply...
