What To Know About the Growth Potential of Biofertilizers

Biofertilizers that combine modern approaches — such as upcycled amino acid nutrients and proteins, natural polymers, precision chemistry, and digital analytics — will define the next decade of crop nutrition, according to Trey Cutts, Vice President of Commercial Agriculture Science with Tidal Grow AgriScience.

“The next frontier isn’t just ‘biologicals vs. synthetics’— it’s integrated nutrient intelligence,” he says. “We’re focused on making these innovations measurable, scalable, and agronomically trusted across global production systems.”

Kelly Tanaka, Chief Science Officer with HGS BioScience, assigns responsibility to academics and industry leaders to continue to improve products in the biofertilizer space and educate growers as the market evolve.

“Biofertilizers,” he says, “are an exciting and growing segment of agriculture that will continue to become more relevant.”

We spoke with representatives of eight crop nutrition manufacturers — Alltech Crop Science, BioWorks, HGS BioScience (formerly NutriAg), Kemin Crop Technologies, Microbial Science Laboratories, Nutrient TECH, Redox Bio-Nutrients, and Tidal Grow AgriScience — to provide a detailed look at the current state of biofertilizers.

The Biological Products Industry Alliance notes that there is no official definition of “biofertilizer.” What definition, if any, do you relay to your grower-customers?

Tanaka (HGS BioScience): “I believe the definition is open to evolve over time, but I have always considered biofertilizers as microbial-based products that help crops grow through a number of different mechanisms. A few key ways are nitrogen (N) fixation, nutrient-use efficiency, and abiotic stress mitigation.”

Cutts (Tidal Grow): “At Tidal Grow, we describe biofertilizers as biologically active nutrient-delivery systems that enhance nutrient availability and uptake through microbial mechanisms or directly through nutrients in the amino acid form. Unlike biostimulants, which influence plant physiology, biofertilizers directly improve soil nutrient dynamics and root absorption. Our seafood hydrolysate delivery platforms bridge biology and nutrition, offering dynamic nutrient delivery and availability, with measurable agronomic benefits.”

Bridget Hatfield (Technical Services Manager, Kemin Crop Technologies): “I would consider a ‘biofertilizer’ to be made by or extracted from a biological organism, like algae extract, for example.”

Cameron Gerecke (Product Development Specialist, Nutrient TECH): “I define biofertilizer as a microbial-based fertilizer.”

Mark Freeman (Technical Services Manager for Plant Nutrition, BioWorks): “I find that it is best to avoid terminology like organic or natural and typically refer to biological nutrient sources as complementary to synthetic nutrient sources.”

Kevin Johnson (Owner, Microbial Science Laboratories): “I would say a biofertilizer is a fertilizer which contains beneficial soil microbes.”

Steven Borst (Vice President, Alltech Crop Science): “We’re a fermentation company. So, when we ascribe a definition to a biological fertilizer or biological input, it is created from that fermentation process. Anything created by a microorganism or generated by a microorganism is what we ascribe to being a biofertilizer or a biological ingredient, whether we’re talking about our amino acids that we generate from our yeast fermentation, our metabolites that we can generate from our bacterial fermentation process, or plant extracts that we create from our yucca plantation that we have in Serdan, Mexico.”

Gifford Gillette and Debatosh Das (Lead Researchers, Redox Bio-Nutrients): “We do not use the term ‘biofertilizer,’ as it originated in the 1970s and is still narrowly defined by many groups to refer mainly to microbial products that fix or supply N. That definition does not accurately describe our technology or the way our products function within the plant and soil system. Instead, we use the term ‘bio-nutrient,’ which reflects a more modern and comprehensive understanding of how plant-active compounds enhance mineral nutrition.

“A bio-nutrient is a nutritional input that combines mineral elements with one or more of the seven categories of biostimulants used in Redox Bio-Nutrients formulations, such as protein hydrolysates, fulvic and humic substrates, alginates, botanical extracts, and other carbon-based molecules. These biostimulants interact with nutrients through Redox Active Molecules to improve energy flow by combating metabolic congestion via nutrient mobility and plant charge balance. This approach supports more efficient nutrient use, stronger root development, improved stress tolerance, and better crop productivity across all growth stages.”

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For more on biofertilizers, click here to continue reading the full article as part of our special report on Integrating Biologicals.