What would you propose, then?

We use organic amendments all the time when reclaiming historically mined lands that did not salvage soils.

Soils take millennia to form, and you're not going to get fertile soils without either kickstarting the process or waiting.

Another commentator points out that using arbuscular mychorrizhal fungi is also cheating. Again, how?

To have a functional soil and not regolith you need the following:

• An organic matter source - regolith lacks this
• A moisture retaining media - regolith usually has this but its ability varies widely
• Enough rooting depth for your desired plants
• A method to transform organic matter to nutrients - regolith generally lacks this

Organic matter is your pool of nutrients and microbes and fungi are what mineralize this pool into plant available forms, so saying they are cheating doesnt hold water (like a shitty regolith).

But I can grow plants in glass beads! Sure you can, but you're supplying chemical fertilizer to do it and constantly replacing that - so in this case you're the organic matter pool and the transformation vector.

@melfie@lemy.lol @cadekat@pawb.social