The distribution of nutrients in soil is heterogeneous or ‘patchy'. It is well established that when roots encounter such nutrient-rich patches they can proliferate within it, often spectacularly so. Such root proliferation will likely increase the release of rhizodeposits into the nutrient patch thus further enhancing the microbial decomposition process. However, roots also have to compete with the micro-organisms for the released nutrients. The benefit of root proliferation to immobile ions such as phosphate is relatively easy to interpret but it has been more difficult to explain in terms of highly mobile ions such as nitrate. We have shown that when plants were grown as individuals there was no relationship between root proliferation in an nitrogen-rich patch and the amount of nitrogen (N) captured from the patch by the plant. In contrast, when two different plant species were grown together in competition for a common N-rich patch then root proliferation did confer an advantage: the plant species which proliferated the most captured the most N from that patch. Recent evidence from several other groups suggests plants can take up simple forms of organic nitrogen (such as amino acids) intact which has again raised the question of which are the superior competitors for nutrients in soil: plant roots or soil micro-organisms? We have shown that while micro-organisms do initially out-compete plants for ‘patch' resources, plants do better in the longer term due to differences in turnover times. Plants also have an additional nutrient acquisition mechanism namely, mycorrhizal symbiosis. We have demonstrated that when only arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), had access to a complex organic patch, the AMF enhanced decomposition of, and acquired N from, the patch. AMF may therefore have an important role in accessing N from complex organic patches to which the plant may not have direct access.