Biologicals Are Growing Fast. The Supporting Chemistry Needs to Catch Up.

This post was penned by Integrity BioChem VP of Agriculture, Dave Coorts. You can find the original post here. 

One of the clearest themes from this year’s CPDA Adjuvants, Inerts, and Crop Protection Conference was the continued momentum behind biological products in agriculture.

Nearly every conversation seemed to touch biologicals in some way.

Biofertilizers. Biostimulants. Biocontrols. Beneficial fungi. Live bacteria. Enzymes. Peptides.

The interest is no longer theoretical. Growers are looking for new tools, and retailers are expanding portfolios. Manufacturers are investing heavily. Regulators are trying to define entirely new categories of products.

Beneath all the excitement though, there’s another conversation happening quietly in formulation labs and technical meetings: a lot of existing chemistry systems were never designed for living technologies. That’s creating some real challenges.

Biologicals Introduce a Different Formulation Problem

Traditional agricultural chemistry has historically been designed around synthetic active ingredients.

Those systems are often extremely effective, stable, and scalable. But they were not necessarily built with biological compatibility in mind.

That matters because biological products behave very differently than traditional chemistries.

Some involve live organisms that must remain viable through storage, mixing, application, UV exposure, and environmental stress. Others rely on fragile enzymes, peptides, or naturally derived compounds that can degrade rapidly under harsh conditions.

At the Council of Producers & Distributors of Agrotechnology (CPDA) conference, several companies discussed problems involving compatibility between biological products and traditional surfactant systems.

In some cases, products intended to improve spreading or wetting were also reducing the viability of the biological itself.

That creates a difficult tradeoff:

You can improve application performance while unintentionally reducing biological performance.

Obviously, that’s not a sustainable path forward.

Not All Surfactants Interact With Biologicals the Same Way

This is where formulation chemistry becomes increasingly important.

Many conventional surfactants were designed for durability and broad compatibility with synthetic chemistry systems. Some can be relatively harsh on living organisms or delicate biological structures.

That doesn’t mean those surfactants are “bad.” They still play a critical role across agriculture.

But it does mean biological systems may require a different formulation mindset.

At Integrity BioChem, many of the conversations we had at CPDA centered around biompatible surfactant systems, particularly for products involving live bacteria, fungi, enzymes, or peptides.

Questions we heard repeatedly included:

• Can the surfactant system protect biological viability?
• Can it reduce UV degradation?
• Can it improve delivery without damaging the active organism?
• Can it support tank-mix compatibility?
• Can it maintain performance at scale?

Those are very different formulation questions than agriculture has traditionally asked.

The Industry Is Still Defining the Rules

Another challenge is that biologicals still exist in a somewhat fragmented regulatory environment.

Some products go through full EPA registration pathways. Others operate through state fertilizer frameworks. Some can make efficacy claims. Others are restricted to nutrient or soil-health language.

Even defining terms like “biostimulant” has taken years of industry discussion.

That lack of clarity creates friction for innovation, especially for smaller companies that may not have the financial resources to navigate full regulatory pathways.

At the same time, interest from growers continues increasing because many biological approaches align naturally with broader industry goals around soil health, sustainability, nutrient efficiency, and long-term resilience.

The demand is moving faster than the supporting infrastructure.

Scale Still Matters

One thing I continue believing strongly:

Biological innovation only matters if it can scale. Agriculture doesn’t operate in pilot plots forever.

Eventually, technologies must move through manufacturing systems, distribution networks, storage environments, transportation logistics, and real-world field conditions.

That’s where formulation technology becomes just as important as the biological itself.

The future likely won’t be a simple “replace synthetic chemistry with biologicals” conversation.

It will probably look more like integrated systems:

• Biology plus compatible chemistry
• Soil health plus scalable delivery
• Sustainability plus economic practicality
• Innovation plus operational reliability

And honestly, that’s probably healthier for the industry long term anyway.

Because agriculture has never really been about choosing one tool forever.

It’s always been about finding better combinations of tools that solve real problems in practical ways.