F
or decades, the playbook has 
looked the same. Find a microbe 
that does something useful, refine 
that function, deploy it widely. That 
playbook isn’t wrong. It’s incomplete.
The conventional approach 
helped build real products and 
move the industry forward, but 
it also created a costly problem. 
Performance is inconsistent, not 
just field to field, but across geog­
raphies and seasons. A product that 
delivers results in Iowa may under­
perform in Georgia with no answer 
as to why. Most have treated this as 
a formulation or application prob­
lem, but it’s an ecology problem. 
    
What the Function-First 
Model Misses
Soil is not a blank slate! Any 
microbe we introduce enters a 
community that has been compet­
ing, communicating, and col­
laborating for far longer than any 
product cycle. 
When microbes are screened 
for function and deployed at scale, 
they’re asked to perform a specific 
job inside one of the most complex 
ecosystems on earth. This can set 
the system up for failure. A microbe 
is sent into a soil community where 
established organisms have inter­
acted for thousands of generations, 
often with no understanding of 
whether it can survive that environ­
ment, much less deliver benefits to 
the crop.
Soil is not a 
	 blank slate
BIOLOGICALS
The mechanisms behind this challenge have been 
underestimated by the industry. Microbes conflict, com­
pete, coexist, and communicate with organisms already 
in the soil, determining whether a new introduction 
thrives or is outcompeted and disappears. 
And there is an even harder truth to acknowl­
edge. Optimizing a microbe for function alone 
can work against its ability to survive in the 
field. The trait we selected may be compro­
mising a prerequisite for performance. It’s 
one reason products that look strong in 
controlled settings produce disappoint­
ing results in the field that can’t be fully 
explained.
Ecology Will Unlock a New Era of 
Biologicals
The next generation of biologicals 
will be built on function and ecology. 
To their credit, seed companies do 
a great job evaluating performance 
across diverse geographies and soil 
types. 
The biologicals industry needs 
that same broad view, evaluating 
microbials for their ability to colonize 
the rhizosphere, persist through the 
season, and deliver plant benefits within 
complex soil microbiomes before they 
reach the market. Companies that integrate 
ecology into screening criteria at the begin­
ning will develop products that hold up consist­
ently across real-world conditions. Those that don’t will 
keep producing the inconsistency holding us back. 
The answer to better-performing microbials is in 
their biology. Will the industry rise to meet the chal­
lenge?
SEPTEMBER 2026  SEEDWORLD.COM /  27
Linda Kinkel
Founder and Chief Science Officer, Jord BioScience

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