Biologicals may shape the future of agriculture — if we stay curious and data-driven.
Many of humanity’s biggest leaps have come from technologies that solved the problems of their time — sometimes with unexpected trade-offs. Fire gave us heat and light, and eventually led us to new fuels: wood, beeswax, whale oil, coal. The discovery of petroleum even seemed like progress for the environment at one point, offering an alternative to whale hunting. But every solution carries consequences, and today we find ourselves confronting the costs of that dependency.
Agriculture has followed a similar path. From manure and compost to synthetic fertilizers and chemistries, we’ve constantly sought new ways to increase productivity. Now, the momentum is shifting again — toward biologicals and biostimulants. These tools are being heralded as the next frontier, with potential to support plant health and resilience in more sustainable ways.
It’s an exciting space. But excitement alone doesn’t move the needle.
Progress Needs Proof
We need to be clear-eyed about innovation. Promising technologies have come and gone in agriculture — some ahead of their time, others lacking the evidence to support their claims. As new biotechnologies emerge, the challenge isn’t just understanding what they are, but what they actually do.
W. Edwards Deming once quipped, “In God we trust; all others must bring data.” That line sticks with me, especially when we’re evaluating tools meant to improve outcomes in something as complex as seed performance. Not because we’re skeptical by default, but because real progress depends on more than belief — it depends on results.
From Concept to Confidence
At Summit, we make space for curiosity — but it’s disciplined curiosity. We ask questions, look at trial design, dig into the agronomic logic, and then verify whether outcomes are repeatable under real-world conditions. Especially when it comes to applying these innovations as seed treatments, we need to know how they’ll perform in practice, not just on paper.
Our role isn’t to chase every new thing. It’s to explore what’s possible — and, when we find something that works, we see if it works on a coating and bring it to the market in a manner you can trust.
Biologicals and biostimulants may well be part of agriculture’s next evolution. But to get there, we have to pair imagination with evidence — and keep asking, testing, and learning along the way.
