The Promise and Pitfalls of Microbial Solutions

Microbial biologicals utilizing beneficial microbes such as AMF and rhizobia bacteria have been hailed as sustainable natural alternatives to synthetic fertilizers. However, recent studies have raised doubts about the effectiveness of beneficial microbes and their commercialized versions in delivering substantial nutrition benefits to plants.

A recent study found limited evidence of nitrogen fixation in non-leguminous crops like cereals, reinforcing decades of research suggesting that bacterial inoculants may boost yields through plant-growth hormones rather than N₂ fixation. This questions the broad use of microbes as an independent solution to improve NUE.

Similarly, the soil health industry promotes microbial inoculants for yield, resilience, and carbon sequestration, but a University of Kansas (KU) study found 88% of commercial mycorrhizal products ineffective, often containing dead spores, hidden fertilizers, or pathogens, risking financial loss, environmental harm, and consumer mistrust. Additionally, overusing fertilizers and pesticides to control pests alongside microbial biologicals is counterintuitive, as they undermine the microbial communities these inoculants aim to enhance. This contradiction likely contributes to microbial inoculant failure.

Interestingly, microbial inoculants containing beneficial strains of Herbaspirillum seropedicae and Klebsiella variicola offer notable agricultural benefits; however, certain strains within these species have also been associated with potential human health risks, including reported cases of Herbaspirillum-induced pneumonia and antimicrobial resistance in K. variicola. Environmental stressors can compromise the mutualism between plants and endophytes by the induction of plant physiological responses and may lead to parasitism under extreme conditions.

“Can microbial inoculants independently survive, thrive, and effectively enhance crop growing in oxidized, tilled soils devoid of organic carbon or missing a functional ecosystem to sustain them?”

Building Resilient Microbial Ecosystems: A Path to Sustainable Agriculture
While microbial inoculants hold potential, they alone cannot replace synthetic fertilizers, emphasizing the need for integration with other sustainable practices for optimal nutrient management. As the renowned ecologist Aldo Leopold once said, “The land is one organism. Its parts, like our own parts, compete with each other and co-operate with each other.” This interconnectedness underscores the importance of building microbial ecosystems that work in harmony with the soil, rather than relying on quick fixes that may disrupt this delicate balance. Rather than reapplying microbial inoculants frequently, we should focus on creating environments where these microbes can thrive long-term. We recommend the following steps:

1) Long-Term Monitoring: Tracking microbial dynamics with microbiome and soil health over time enables adaptive application methods, ensuring effective microbial introductions and lasting benefits for soil and crops. Monitoring interactions between inoculated and native soil microbes is key to preventing imbalances or competition. This ensures introduced microbes adapt and provide benefits without harming soil health or biodiversity.

2) Agroecological Practices for Supporting Microbial Ecosystems:
Agroecological practices like reduced tillage, cover cropping, integrated pest management and companion planting enhance microbial ecosystems by improving soil structure, reducing oxidation, and maintaining organic matter for a stable, nutrient-rich habitat. Integrating these practices would gradually rebuild soil biology and restore soil carbon reserves over time enhancing microbial effectiveness.

3) The Role of Soluble Carbon and Charge Balance:
An often-overlooked factor in microbial success is the role of soluble organic matter (SOM). Restoring soil organic carbon through carbon-based biostimulants produced via multi-step fractionation processes enhances soil health by optimizing soil redox potential and charge balance. A multi-step process selectively concentrates and recombines bioactive compounds (secondary metabolites) that are absent in carbon-based products derived from conventional one-step fractionation, enhancing their functional benefits. This will prevent imbalances from carbon oxidation in overworked fields that can disrupt nutrient availability and microbial redox activity. Soluble carbon also serves as a crucial food source for soil microbes, fueling their activity and ensuring their survival. This would strengthen the soil microbiome and reduce the need for microbial reapplications. H-85™ is an excellent example of a superior soluble carbon source.

4) Informed Use of Microbial Biologicals
Buyers must carefully navigate the microbial market to prevent inefficacy and unintended ecological impacts, requiring stricter regulations, validated modes of action, field-tested results, improved quality control, transparent labeling, independent testing, global standards, and locally sourced native microbe products. Establishing industry reliability and consumer trust is essential for unlocking this potential.

The Path Forward: A Holistic Approach to Sustainable Agriculture
To maximize microbial inoculant efficacy, growers should combine regulated microbial solutions with soluble carbon inputs and sustainable farming practices to restore soil and plant charge balance, support microbial health, and minimize environmental stress from excessive fertilizers and pesticides. Educating growers and agronomists on these principles can accelerate the adoption of practices that enhance microbial performance while maintaining ecological balance. As environmentalist John Muir wisely noted, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” This interconnectedness underscores the importance of holistic agricultural approaches, reminding us that every decision impacts the broader ecosystem.

Soil Health Balance: This encompasses the physical, chemical, and biological properties of soil that support its functionality. Healthy soil features structure and chemistry that supports microbial life via organic matter, nutrient availability, and carbon cycling. Balanced soils also promote disease suppression through beneficial microbes that outcompete pathogens.

Plant Charge Balance: This equilibrium encompasses the electrical charge of plant cells, organs, and tissues crucial for maintaining plant signaling and overall plant health. This balance primarily involves cations (positively charged ions, such as potassium, calcium, and magnesium) and anions (negatively charged ions, like nitrate, phosphate, and sulfate). It is essential for nutrient uptake, water regulation, and overall plant vitality. Disruptions can lead to stress and hinder growth, making plants more susceptible to diseases.

Interconnections:These elements are interlinked: healthy soil fosters nutrient availability, which supports plant charge balance. Well-balanced plants contribute organic matter back to the soil, enhancing its health and carbon cycling. A steady soil, nutrient, and plant system leads to a crop that can adapt to its environment when faced with abiotic stress, pests, or diseases ultimately increasing yields.

Understanding and managing these interconnections is key to achieving sustainable agricultural production and ecosystem resilience.

“Our Midwest agronomy team will provide customer service that is a hallmark of Redox,” Moon added. “Our team members Tyler Jones and Aimee Burke are outstanding, and they bring an impressive track record of successful collaborations with growers.”

The Redox Pathway – Midwest Program includes two flagship products and revolutionary new technology with a decade of research behind it. Banx™ is a powerful tool for increasing yield potential. It is specifically formulated with potassium, phosphorus, zinc and boron, as well as biostimulant properties, to aid phenolic compound production and provide stellar abiotic stress defense and nitrogen metabolism. Mainstay Si™ is a microencapsulated silicon and calcium-based product focusing on the synergy of silicon and calcium to improve cell wall structure. RDX-N™ has a patent-pending combination of biostimulants that increase nitrogen optimization, including a 50-percent reduction in synthetic liquid nitrogen applications while maintaining peak production and quality.

Interested parties can find out more at redoxgrows.com/midwest/, including details on our September 25 webinar and signing up to speak with a Redox Bio-Nutrients agronomist.

Amendments including components like soluble/active carbon, calcium and surfactants can all help to improve soil condition and improve plant growing conditions.

The addition of soluble carbon (fulvic acid, humic acid, longer chain carbon and carboxylic acid) components can help to improve soil nutrient availability, sequester salts, stimulate root growth, improve moisture holding capacity, improve CEC and stimulate soil biological activity.  The addition of soluble carbon is particularly beneficial in intensively farmed soils as carbon becomes oxidized through tillage and intensive cropping practices.

Calcium is also an important soil conditioning amendment.  Calcium in cation form (Ca⁺⁺) flocculates or “opens” soils.  High levels of sodium and/or magnesium tighten clay particle pore space due to the relatively small size of the Mg⁺⁺ and Na⁺ cations that bind soil aggregates together.  Ca⁺⁺ is a much larger cation that creates larger spaces between soil/clay particles.

Another beneficial component to incorporate to improve soil condition is the use of surfactants.  Surfactants act to reduce water surface tension, allowing water to move more easily through soil pore spaces.  When irrigation water is applied to soils, it carries salts which can be beneficial as fertilizer. It also can become toxic for your plant when salt concentrations become too high, or the mix becomes toxic when containing excess levels of salts like sodium, chloride, boron, sulfur and others.  Surfactants help to keep the soil solution moving through soil pores and reduce excess concentrations in the root zone.

Ultimately, the best solution will likely contain combinations of the above components.  Incorporating surfactants with soluble carbon and/or calcium can provide a synergistic approach to improving soil condition.

Redox Bio-Nutrients is a leader in providing these technologies for growers.   Please see some product descriptions below and reach out to us with specific questions on how these products can help improve soil conditions on your ranch.

Technology from Redox Bio-Nutrients includes 36 agricultural products, six of which are organic, and 13 golf and sports turf products through the Redox TurfRx line. Redox has obtained six patents and 40 trademarks, with products sold in 48 states and 20 countries.

Moon and Kelly remain extremely active in the company. Darin and Valerie’s family members play pivotal roles at Redox, including sons Colton and Kody. Colton is the company’s president and Kody serves in several roles within company leadership.

Redox was among the first to provide biostimulant technology, in addition to highly efficient, carbon-based plant nutrition. Today the plant biostimulant marketplace is occupied by some 1,200 companies.

“We are constantly challenging ourselves to help growers get the most from their fields and orchards,” said Colton Moon. “Sustainability must go beyond doing more with less to also factor in a grower’s bottom line. Just as our family business includes multiple generations, we are working hard to help ensure future generations of family farmers.”

Redox Bio-Nutrients LLC provides superior plant nutrition with biostimulants to help growers produce abundant, high quality crops through Redox Homeostasis, or plant charge balance.  Find out more at redoxgrows.com/30th-anniversary/.

The high value crops that we assist growers with in California’s coastal areas often face stress from a host of factors, including untimely rain, excessive heat, high winds and salt accumulation in their soils from irrigation and fertigation during our long growing season. Some of the most effective products we work with include Mainstay™ Calcium 2.0/Organic, Mainstay™ Si/Organic, Penecal™/Organic, diKaP™, H85™/Organic and Rx Platinum™. 

Executing a balanced nutrition program will ensure that your crops are poised to weather the constant barrage of abiotic and biotic stress that your crop will encounter every day.

Redox Bio-Nutrients products are designed with this in mind, providing nutrition in ionic, plant-available form. Our products are chelated, complexed, and encapsulated, using carbon-based technologies to provide the balance your crop needs.  We call this balanced approach achieving “Redox Homeostasis”.

Simply put, when you incorporate Redox products, your crop will receive a source of nutrition that will provide the balance your crop needs to deliver optimal productivity.