Biology, not chemistry. Eighty years of synthetic inputs stripped the living systems out of the soil. We culture the microbes that put them back, and we measure what happens.
Established in one. Building the other. Through our laboratory relationships we bring 35 years of bioremediation experience to contaminated land and water. Our agricultural microbes are in research and development, which is exactly why we are putting them on people's ground for free.
Petroleum hydrocarbons, creosote, oily sludges and halogenated organics, destroyed in place across refineries, railroads, tank farms, industrial land and contaminated water. Experience held through our laboratory relationships and brought to every project we take on.
93,870 → 1,221 mg/kg in 30 days, storage terminal waste pit
A five year research and development programme to prove living microbial consortia on working farmland. The current formulation is a five strain liquid consortium drawn from three Bacillus species, each chosen for a documented job in the root zone.
+786% nitrite oxidisers in treated soil, Prosper corn trial 2025
Everything starts in the top six inches. Rebuild the biology there and the rest follows.
RAD Microbes is in active research and development on its agricultural biology, and the fastest way to prove it is on real ground in real conditions. So we are giving it away. We are looking for people with land, turf or growing space who will host a trial through the 2026 and 2027 seasons. There is no cost to host. There is some work, and we would rather be straight with you about it than have you find out later.
Apply the product to the treated plot when the protocol says. Grow both plots exactly as you normally would. Then at the end of the season, take samples from each and send them to our laboratory. That is the whole commitment.
There is no baseline test to organise before you plant, nothing to monitor while the crop is growing, and no visits to arrange. The sequencing happens in our laboratory once your samples arrive.
The rates opposite are the standard ones, and you will be the one applying it, so they are worth a look before you get in touch. Every trial gets a protocol written around what you grow and how you already work, so nothing here is asking you to change your routine.
If any of this sounds like your ground, get in touch and we will talk it through properly.
| Where it goes | Rate |
|---|---|
| Fields, turf and landscapes | 1 litre / acre |
| Garden beds and vegetables | 4 tbsp / 2 gal |
| Containers and potted plants | 1 tbsp / 1 gal |
| Hydroponic and soilless | 1 tbsp / 1 gal |
Apply to the soil or into the water, never onto the leaves. To activate, stir in about a tablespoon of molasses per gallon before applying. Skip the molasses for hydroponic systems and re dose reservoirs at each change.
In 1947 the munitions plant at Muscle Shoals switched from making explosives to making fertiliser, and cheap synthetic nitrogen began to flood American fields. Yields rose. So did dependency. Decades of heavy chemical use stripped the soil of its living biology and left the land needing ever larger inputs simply to hold yields steady, while commodity prices fell. The economist Willard Cochrane named it in 1958 as the technology treadmill, and it still runs today.
To halt the desertification of the American Midwest, and to put the farmer's margin back where it belongs.
Rebuild the biology that eighty years of synthetic inputs stripped out, so that soil becomes an appreciating asset again rather than a depleting one.
Put inexpensive living microbial consortia into staple crops in place of manufactured inputs, and pair them with low till and no till practice so the biology can hold.
Lower the cost of production rather than chasing yield alone. A farmer who buys less is a farmer who keeps more, on ground that improves each season instead of degrading.
Contamination metabolised, not moved.
Precision microbial bioremediation for petroleum hydrocarbons and related organics, including diesel, grease, creosote, naphthalene, oily sludges and halogenated hydrocarbons. Six completed field programmes across railroads, refineries, tank farms, industrial land and contaminated water. Nothing is excavated and nothing goes to landfill.
A storage terminal waste pit was treated first with a competing product. After sixty days the contamination had not fallen. It had risen, from 93,870 to 96,900 mg/kg. Switched to our microbial solution, the same pit reached regulatory safe levels in thirty days.
See all six programmes
The comparison is the whole point. Same field, same weather, same management, one variable changed. That is why the numbers are worth reading.
In 2025 we ran a comparative trial on corn in Prosper, Texas. Two acres received our Bacillus consortium with reduced NPK fertiliser, applied as a liquid inoculum at planting. Adjacent control acres received standard NPK alone. Soil analysed by 16S rRNA sequencing showed a distinctly more balanced microbial community in the treated ground, with pronounced gains in the functional groups that drive nitrogen efficiency and soil structure.
Everything RAD Microbes does rests on organisms you cannot see without a microscope, working in the few inches of ground where roots actually live. The consortium is built on deliberate redundancy, so that more than one organism covers each job.
The current formulation is a liquid consortium of five strains drawn from three species, all within the genus Bacillus. Each was chosen for a specific documented function, and each was validated on its own before the consortium was finalised. That discipline is deliberate. When a new organism joins a working system its contribution has to be attributable rather than assumed, which is why the expansion beyond Bacillus is staged rather than rushed.
The formulation's phosphorus specialist. Produces gluconic and oxalic acids that break the mineral bonds locking phosphorus into forms roots cannot absorb, releasing it continuously without further fertiliser. Confirmed at 2.6 percent relative abundance in the treated Prosper plots by 16S rRNA sequencing, which is evidence of real colonisation.
Produces extracellular cellulase enzymes that break down lignin rich crop debris and thatch, and iturin class lipopeptides that inhibit Fusarium and Pythium at the root surface. Works under anoxic and anaerobic conditions where many competitors fail, so it keeps going in compacted or waterlogged ground.
Produces biosurfactants including iturin, surfactin and fengycin that change how water moves through soil, improving infiltration and reducing the hydrophobicity of degraded ground. Suppresses opportunistic pathogens and competes for root surface sites, stabilising the community so the others establish.
White rot fungi such as Trametes, mycorrhizal fungi, Pseudomonas species for pesticide degradation, and Azospirillum for biological nitrogen fixation. Each will be validated independently before it enters the consortium. Read the full biology.
Because the consortia rebuild the underlying biology of the soil rather than target a single crop, the same living foundation supports row crops, forage, vegetables, orchards, turf and pasture.
Corn came first, at Prosper in 2025, and is the trial the sequencing data comes from. We are now extending into soy, wheat and sorghum, plus forage and specialty crops, to test how far the biology carries across soils and cropping systems.
Nine sections across three varieties, testing fertiliser and microbe rates against three water regimes so that water is the only variable. Planted July 2026.
Golf and turf. Monthly application targeting the thatch layer and root zone, measured against an untreated control on the same course.
RAD Microbes is deliberately compact. The laboratory work, the farms and the trials are run by people who are on them, not by a department that reports on them.
Environmental scientist and the founder of RAD Microbes. He built the company around a Houston microbiology laboratory in order to bring proven remediation biology to farmland, and leads the trial programme and every remediation project the company takes on.
Runs the molecular work. Erik's Environmental Genomics suite covers qPCR and metagenomic 16S rDNA sequencing, customised for soil and water, and it is his analysis behind the Prosper corn trial results published on this site.
Owns and runs the farm where the microbes are proved. The 2026 industrial hemp trial at Krum sits on his ground, nine sections across three varieties. Alongside RAD Microbes he works in environmental compliance for Lowe's.
Manages the trials on the ground, from application and irrigation through to sampling. Abram runs the day to day of the Krum programme and is the person a pilot host deals with once a trial is under way.
Builds and maintains the digital side of the business. An experienced strategist working across digital transformation, systems and the way the company's science is presented and published.
Petroleum hydrocarbons, diesel, grease, creosote, naphthalene, oily sludges and halogenated organics, in soil and in water. Treated in place, with no excavation and nothing hauled to landfill. Molecular diagnostics first, so the consortium is matched to what is actually there.
Tell us the contaminant, the levels and the site conditions, and we will come back with what the biology can do and what it will cost.
See the remediation recordFields, gardens, golf courses, turf, orchards, pasture and hydroponic systems. You grow a treated plot beside an untreated control, apply the product to the protocol we write, and send us samples from both at the end of the season. We sequence them and hand you the results.
Free for the 2026 and 2027 seasons. Product and genomics laboratory work at our cost.
Tell us where you are, roughly how much ground you can offer and what you grow. Capacity is limited.
