A field that looks good on top doesn’t always mean the roots underneath are doing their job. That’s what Sound Agriculture set out to solve with Inflect, a new seed-applied biological launching for the 2027 season and built for corn acres carrying heavy anhydrous ammonia or manure applications.
“It’s kind of like shopping with a full stomach — you don’t buy as many groceries for your next meal when you’re already full,” says Jeff Divan, vice president of agronomy at Sound Agriculture. On high-fertility acres, he says, plants sitting on plenty of applied nitrogen don’t bother extending their roots to find more of it — and if that nitrogen source has also disrupted the soil biology around it, the roots that do grow are working from a deficit.
The Efficiency Blind Spot
Sound Agriculture is positioning Inflect first as a nutrient use efficiency (NUE) play rather than a traditional yield-boosting biological.
“That’s where it fits into our NUE story,” Divan says. “It’s a different mode of action than we’ve typically explored, but it’s important to be efficient with nutrients — even on the higher ranges of applications and soil levels.”
Anhydrous ammonia and manure are two of the most common — and most effective — ways to deliver nitrogen to a corn crop.
“When there’s a lot of ammonium applied in a given time, it’s going to acidify that soil zone right where it’s applied, especially with a spring application, and spike the pH and disrupt nutrient availability — creating an imbalance that takes a while to recover from,” Divan says.
Manure creates a different but related problem.
“With most other fertilizers, it’s a race against time until you leach or volatilize that nutrient,” Divan says. “Manure is almost the opposite — sometimes it’s not breaking down fast enough to become available before the season’s over, so it carries into the next season, where it’s still of value, but not for the crop it was applied for.”
Either way, the visible result on top of the ground can mask what’s happening below it.
“Those plants can look pretty happy on top at the beginning of the season, but the roots aren’t working below ground to reach out and dig deeper into the soil profile,” Divan says.
What’s In It
Inflect combines two Bacillus strains (B. simplex and B. subtilis) with the endophytic fungal strain C. nivea, all selected for their ability to tolerate the high-salt, high-stress conditions that heavy ammonium fertility creates. The two bacterial strains are the first responders, re-establishing themselves in disrupted soil and aiding early root growth and nutrient cycling. The fungal strain works differently: it forms an endophytic relationship with the root system and extends its own mycelium into the surrounding soil, while also helping metabolize the larger organic fractions left behind by manure applications — directly addressing the slow-mineralization problem Divan describes.
Field Trial Data
Sound Agriculture tested Inflect at 12 locations across Illinois, Kansas and Missouri in 2025, checked against an untreated control with no other changes to fertility or practices. The result: a 92% win rate and a 6.0 bu/ac average yield gain. Inflect’s trial results, he says, showed gains across the yield spectrum rather than concentrated in stressed or under-fertilized fields.
“Two of the top three yield environments where we saw double-digit gains were a field averaging 260 bushels of corn and a field averaging 282,” he says. “There seem to be too many products that only win on your lowest-performing field — the one that hasn’t been fertilized in a decade. There aren’t as many options for a grower who has good fertility but wants to put biology to work for them.”
Fits Alongside Source and Blueprint
Inflect joins Sound Agriculture’s existing lineup of Source and Blueprint as a complementary addition rather than a replacement.
“We still see the opportunity for Blueprint and Source to combine on acres where fertility is limited,” Divan says. “Where Inflect is uniquely positioned is on higher-fertility acres that become less efficient at cycling [nutrients] through the soil and into the plant.”
Regarding compatibility of layering seed treatments: Divan says Inflect “rides really well in the planter box with any other seed treatments, micronutrients, chemistries or fertilizers applied in that seed zone.”
Application Advice for Best Performance
Inflect is applied as a dry powder on-seed, available either as a pouch (treating 50 units, or 4 million seeds, per pouch) or through the Clips biopod device at the same treatment rate. The two delivery methods carry different timing windows: pouch-applied seed must be planted within 45 days, while seed treated through a Clips seed-box system can be treated up to 18 months ahead of planting.
Divan emphasizes that how the product is applied affects how well it performs.
“Instead of filling your planter and sprinkling something on top and hoping it percolates down the seed hopper, put it in a seed box, transfer that to another box — that mixing and stirring does a good job of coating all the seeds so it’s evenly distributed,” he says, recommending the box-to-box method over top-dressing for any dry seed treatment, including Sound’s other products.
Price and Availability
Inflect carries an MSRP of $12 per acre for 2027, with discounts available for early booking and for combining it with other Sound Agriculture products ahead of the October 15, 2026 early-order deadline.
