A thriving microbial community—the bacteria, fungi, and other life forms that make up the full soil microbiome—drives critical fertility functions in our soils. They’re oftentimes already present, but in a dormant state due to a lack of carbon feed sources that provide energy.
PrairieFood’s natural products act as that charge, delivering carbon in a liquid form that microbes can instantly consume. Traditional biomass decomposition requires multiple steps and months of microbial succession. PrairieFood accelerates the decomposition, allowing the microbial populations to explode and unlocking the banked fertility in the soil.
Each product delivers a complex blend of labile carbons and nutrients that are easily and quickly consumed by active and dormant microbes, improving soil health while supporting regenerative farming.
SLURRY excels in delivering higher mass, SCFAs, macro- and micronutrients for long-term soil building and fertility restoration.
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NITRO provides greater total nitrogen, digestible carbon, and amino acids per unit of solids for rapid biological ignition and flexible, modern application.
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Our patented HydroThermal Carbonization (HTC) process deconstructs biomass in seconds—breaking time and cost barriers of traditional HTC systems—producing a diverse range of bioavailable carbon compounds from readily available waste streams.
By accelerating decomposition and nutrient cycling, PrairieFood feeds the native microbial populations in the soil simultaneously, allowing their populations to explode.
PrairieFood is a renewable soil amendment produced through a patented continuous-flow HydroThermal Carbonization (HTC) process. No synthetic chemistry is added – the inputs are agricultural waste streams, and the process is thermal and mechanical.
PrairieFood delivers an immediate energy boost to native soil microbial populations, many of which lie dormant in degraded soils with low soil organic matter (SOM). The micro-carbon and nutrient fractions act as a direct microbial substrate, stimulating respiration and rapid population growth.
Over time, repeated applications rebuild microbial biomass and functional diversity, increasing SOM and restoring more balanced carbon:nitrogen:phosphorus ratios. As that biomass and diversity rebuild, more of the soil's fertility cycles on its own — which is the point. The two products do different jobs on different clocks: PrairieFood Nitro is the short-term microbial catalyst, consumed within weeks of application, and PrairieFood Slurry is the long-term systems-rebuilding tool, cycling over months to years. We are measuring the second part as it happens across our trial network.
– Reduction of synthetic nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer requirements through enhanced microbial nutrient cycling.
– Increased microbial biomass and diversity, improving soil biological resilience.
– Enhanced soil aggregation and porosity, improving infiltration and water holding capacity.
– Greater nutrient-use efficiency and crop resilience to abiotic and biotic stresses.
– Long-term improvement in SOM, land value, and ecosystem services.
Compost primarily supplies stable organic matter that decomposes slowly, while biochar supplies inert carbon that resists decomposition. PrairieFood, by contrast, contains labile carbon molecules and nutrient fractions that are immediately bioavailable to microbes. This fuels microbial metabolism within hours to days, rather than months or years, while also leaving behind more recalcitrant carbon fractions that contribute to SOM buildup.
Yes. PrairieFood is made from renewable agricultural feedstocks with no synthetic chemistry introduced during processing. The output contains naturally occurring carbon molecules and nutrients that are safe to handle and compatible with both conventional and renewable agricultural practices.
Yes. PrairieFood synergizes with herbicide and residue breakdown programs, microbial inoculants, and reduced starter fertilizer regimes. By supplying an immediate carbon energy source, PrairieFood enhances the efficacy and survival of introduced biologicals and increases the cycling of applied nutrients.
In the first season, growers most often report changes they can see: better infiltration in wet spots, softer soil, more worm activity. The compounding effects on SOM and nutrient-use efficiency show up over multiple seasons; our longest continuously documented Slurry field is entering its fourth season, and the broader multi-year dataset is being built now through our trial network.
PrairieFood is currently manufactured in Kansas using regional biowastes. Additional production sites are planned across the Midwest to provide proximity to feedstocks and farm customers, strengthening the rural circular economy.
PrairieFood Slurry
Formulation: Higher total solids (~12%), broad nutrient spectrum, and elevated short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs).
Application: Best suited for high-volume equipment (high-flow liquid sprayers, fertilizer injection systems).
Function: Designed for long-term soil building and fertility restoration. Slurry delivers higher mass of carbon, macro- and micronutrients per gallon, making it especially effective for restoring nutrient-depleted soils and steadily rebuilding soil organic matter (SOM).
PrairieFood Nitro
Formulation: Lower solids (~1.7%) but greater nutrient availability per unit of solids, with higher total nitrogen and digestible carbon fractions.
Application: Compatible with standard broadcast sprayers, pivots, Y-drops, and in-furrow planting equipment.
Function: Optimized for rapid microbial ignition and flexible in-season use. Nitro provides higher concentrations of readily available nitrogen, carbon, and amino acids, making it ideal for quick biological activation in the root zone and modern precision delivery systems.
In summary:
Slurry is the preferred choice for foundational, long-term soil rebuilding where maximum carbon mass and nutrient diversity are needed.
Nitro is the more flexible, “fast-acting” product, designed to ignite microbial activity quickly and integrate seamlessly with standard liquid application systems
PrairieFood has demonstrated positive impacts across major row crops (corn, soybeans, wheat), specialty crops, and perennial forages.
By reducing the volume of fossil-fuel-derived fertilizer a system needs, PrairieFood reduces the nutrient load available to run off or leach. Improved aggregation and infiltration keep more rainfall in the profile. We are not currently selling carbon credits and do not make sequestration claims we haven't measured. The SOM work is under way across our trial network.
In 2025, an independent trial network ran Nitro in-furrow against each grower's own starter fertilizer across 11 commercial corn trials. Yield matched. But two other things moved in the Nitro plots that we did not expect to move together: soil health scores rose, and so did soil nitrogen — in ground where no starter nitrogen had been applied.
Those two normally trade against each other. Nitrogen sitting in the soil at any moment is nitrogen the biology has not taken up. Seeing both climb suggested the system was cycling faster rather than simply holding more. Eleven farms in one season is not enough to conclude that, so we set out to test it at scale.
In our Patterson Family Foundation soil health study, soil health score and plant-available nitrogen rose together on 15 of 26 Nitro fields, averaging two points of score and about 15 pounds of available nitrogen per acre. On 13 of those, microbial respiration was up as well — three measurements moving the same direction on half the fields we looked at.
That number is a snapshot of what the soil was releasing the day we pulled the sample, not a credit to take off a fertility plan — a soil that is cycling well can test differently two weeks later. What it tells us is that the system was working, which is what we were testing for. It is the same pattern the 2025 trials showed, with different growers, on more than twice as many fields, measured a different way.
Mid-season is early to be seeing this, and that is the point. Nitro is built to work in weeks, and these samples were pulled weeks to a few months after it went in the furrow.
These are single before-and-after samples with no untreated strip beside them. The fields that started with the lowest soil health scores gained the most, and the ones that started highest lost ground. A low test has more room to come up and a high test has more room to fall, so we cannot yet tell how much of this was the product and how much was a season being a season.
The way to settle it is to run treated and untreated strips side by side in the same field, on the same ground we sampled this year. That work is designed and we are working to fund it for 2027.
