It is the practice of rebuilding the biology in farmland so the ground does more of the work and bought inputs do less of it. This page explains what that involves, and shows what it did to two acres of corn in Prosper, Texas.
Healthy farmland holds billions of bacteria and fungi per gram. They release phosphorus that is locked in mineral form, convert nitrogen into the form roots can take up, build the crumb structure that holds water, and occupy the space that would otherwise be taken by organisms that damage the crop.
Decades of tillage, synthetic fertiliser and broad spectrum chemistry have thinned that population on a great deal of working ground. The soil still grows a crop. It just needs more bought input each year to do it, because the biology that used to supply those functions is no longer there in useful numbers.
Regenerative agricultural development is the work of putting that biology back and measuring whether it took. The measuring is the part that separates it from a philosophy. Without sequencing the soil before and after, nobody can say whether anything changed.
Not organic certification
Organic standards define prohibited inputs. They say nothing about whether the biology in your soil is improving. Ground can be certified organic and still be biologically poor.
Not abandoning fertiliser
The trial below ran on reduced NPK, not on none. The argument is that stronger biology lets the same crop run on less, not that a working farm can stop buying nitrogen.
Not a claim about carbon
Carbon sequestration claims are hard to verify on a single farm over one season. We measure the microbial population, because that can be sequenced and checked by anyone.
Two acres received a Bacillus consortium plus NPK below standard rates. Adjacent acres received standard NPK and no microbes. Soil from both was sequenced on 13 August 2025 by an independent laboratory. The raw sample records are public.
| What was measured | Treated | Control | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ammonia oxidisers | 1.00 | 0.43 | First step of nitrification. Converts ammonia the crop cannot use into nitrite. |
| Nitrite oxidisers | 0.62 | 0.07 | Second step. Produces the nitrate roots actually take up. |
| Phosphate accumulators | 0.79 | 0.28 | Release phosphorus that is present in the soil but locked in mineral form. |
| Filamentous bacteria | 3.37 | 1.29 | Build the aggregate structure that holds water through a dry spell. |
| Glycogen accumulators | 0.25 | 0.00 | Present in treated soil only. Involved in biological phosphorus handling. |
Relative frequency percentages from 16S rRNA sequencing, taxa at 0.1% abundance or above.
One season. Two acres. One sampling date. That is enough to show the mechanism is real and measurable in a working field. It is not enough to tell you what your farm will yield.
The microbial shifts above were measured. The figures people usually want, a 20 to 30 percent reduction in fertiliser need and a 5 to 15 percent yield improvement, are inferred from those shifts and from what the enriched organisms are known to do. They are not harvest results. We label them that way every time, because a grower deciding what to buy deserves to know which number came from a laboratory and which came from an inference.
The trial is being scaled from two acres to fifty, testing different microbial doses against different NPK levels, tracked across seasons. Those results will be published on the same page as these.
Three of them feed the crop. Two of them clean up what previous chemistry left behind. That second pair is what makes this applicable to ground with a history, not only to ground that is already in good order.
Produces extracellular enzymes that degrade complex organic compounds, making nutrients available that are otherwise locked in undecomposed matter. It strengthens root systems and reduces the reliance on chemical fertiliser to do the same job.
Solubilises phosphate and other trace minerals, making them accessible to the crop, and produces extracellular polysaccharides that let it establish on the root rather than wash through. Matters most in nutrient-poor soil, where the phosphorus is present but locked in mineral form the plant cannot reach.
Produces subtilisin and biosurfactants that combat pathogenic fungi and bacteria, while its enzymatic activity breaks down organic matter and plant waxes. The result is less soil compaction and better water infiltration, alongside reduced need for chemical pesticide.
Degrade recalcitrant organics including pesticides and herbicides. These are what allow degraded land to be brought back into productive use rather than written off, and they address the chemical residue question that regulation is tightening around.
Break down a wide range of environmental pollutants through ligninolytic enzymes, including persistent compounds that bacteria alone struggle with. Their role here is restoring soil health on ground that has carried heavy chemistry.
The pilot programme runs through 2026 and 2027. RAD Microbes supplies the consortium free of charge, provides the application protocol, and pays for the genomic laboratory work.
A treated plot and an untreated control on the same farm. You apply the product yourself following the protocol, and grow both plots as you normally would.
The consortium, the protocol, and the laboratory work at the end of the season. No baseline test beforehand, no monitoring during, no site visits.
At the end of the season you take samples from each plot and send them to the laboratory. You get the results whatever they say. So do we, which is the point of running it with a control.
