Our crops need better armour. We’re building it.
Stress takes a big bite out of every harvest. A changing climate, tightening regulation and rising input costs squeeze yields and margins, season after season. Resilien’s silicon fertiliser is engineered to help crops and margins stand up to it, at a cost per hectare that works, and to fit into the nutrient program you already run.
Figures derived from published Australian soil and agronomy research, including Soil Research (2025) and industry R&D reports. Full references available on request - contact us.
Good management is not always enough to beat stress.
Crops are under pressure from several directions at once, and the usual levers are running out. Growers told us the same things again and again.
Intensive production wears the soil down
Every harvest takes silicon with it. In grasses such as sugar cane and pasture, plant-available silicon can fall over successive crops, leaving plants more exposed to stress.
Climate and salinity keep tightening
Heat, dry spells and salty soils cut productivity on farms around the world. In a bad year, stress can take a large share of a crop's potential.
Input costs are outrunning prices
Fertiliser and chemical costs have climbed faster than commodity prices, and margins on many farms are already thin. There is little room to absorb a poor season.
So why isn’t everyone using it?
Silicon has been studied for decades, but most products are too expensive per hectare, awkward to handle, or hard to fit into a normal nutrient program. That has limited adoption in broadacre farming.
We’ve engineered ours to fix those three things. See how it works
A few questions we could not stop asking.
They came up in conversations with growers, agronomists and researchers. Here is where each one led us.
You replace what the crop takes out. So why not all of it?
Take sugarcane as an example. Most growers put back nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, because every harvest removes them. Yet apart from potassium, cane takes up more silicon than any other mineral nutrient. An average crop removes 100 to 175 kg of silicon per hectare, and very high-yielding crops can hold over 250 kg. Industry estimates suggest only a small share of growers actively replace the silicon their crops remove.
Source: Sugar Research Australia (2022).
Every harvest takes silicon out of the soil, so for broadacre crops, running short is only a matter of time.
Soil is full of silicon. So how can a crop still run short?
Silicon is the second most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, but most of it is locked inside minerals that plants cannot use. It is a bit like trying to get iron by eating a nail. The iron is in there, but not in a form the body can take up.
A plant can only take up the small fraction that has dissolved. Many natural silicon sources are largely insoluble, which is why a soil, or a product, can be full of silicon and still fall short. In CSIRO field trials, natural sources such as diatomaceous earth and crushed rock did not deliver a measurable response.
Sources: CSIRO (2003); Sugar Research Australia (2022).
If silicon helps crops, why is this the first you have heard of it?
Because for most of the last century, silicon wasn’t on the list of essential plant nutrients. The rules for that list were set in the 1930s, and the test was simple: can a plant survive without it? Plants can survive without silicon, in the same way you can survive without fibre in your diet. You just wouldn’t want to live that way for long.
Research since then has kept finding the same thing. Crops with enough silicon are stronger, healthier and better able to cope with whatever a season throws at them. In 2026, after nearly a century of that research, US fertiliser regulators finally added silicon to their official list of plant nutrients.
Some farmers didn’t wait for the rulebook to catch up. In Japan, where rice has been grown on the same paddies for centuries, silicon fertiliser has been routine since the 1950s, and by the 1970s farmers there were applying more than a million tonnes of it a year. Australian broadacre crops take silicon out of the soil just the same. The practice just hasn’t caught up here yet.
Sources: Epstein (1999); AAPFCO (2026).
My crop looks fine without it. Why change anything?
It may well be fine. But most farmers don’t farm for fine. Getting the best out of the land is a point of pride, and for many it’s something handed down, to be handed on in better shape. A crop that falls short of what the paddock could produce costs just as much to grow, and the difference comes out of the margin. That margin is what keeps the farm in the family, gives the kids the choice to come back, and keeps the town going.
Most farms have already pushed the familiar levers hard: nitrogen, crop protection, better varieties, better timing. Each extra kilogram of nitrogen tends to buy less than the last. Sooner or later, doing more of what always worked stops paying off, and the next real gain has to come from somewhere new. The last big step change in crops came from genetics. The next one may come from how well the crop holds up when the season turns against it. That’s the part most programs leave untouched, and it’s where silicon works.
Crops that can take a hit take some of the gamble out of farming, and put some of the fun back in.
Every farm is different, so we’re putting it to the test where it counts: on real paddocks, with growers and agronomists, and measured properly.
Register your interestArmour your crop.
Crops like cane, cereals and pasture grasses take up a lot of silicon from the soil and lay it down in their leaves and stalks as a fine mineral layer. It’s the plant’s own armour, and the more it has to work with, the tougher the crop.
Built-in armour
Plants store silicon as microscopic opal-like particles that stiffen their cell walls. By one estimate, building it costs the plant less than a twentieth of the energy of the woody material it would otherwise rely on.
Stands up to the weather
Stronger stalks and leaves help keep the crop upright through wind and rain, and hold leaves up to the sun.
Holds on when conditions turn
Research has linked good silicon supply to better water use and better tolerance of drought, salinity, frost and waterlogging.
Makes your other inputs work harder
Research has linked good silicon supply to more efficient use of nitrogen and phosphorus, so more of what you apply goes into the crop.
Sources: Epstein (1994); Sugar Research Australia (2022); CSIRO (2003).
A silicon fertiliser built for broadacre.
Our products are engineered to be affordable per hectare, safe to handle and compatible with how growers already apply nutrients.
Source
Reliable silicon sources, including recovered glass from regional processors, chosen for consistent quality and low cost.
Transform
Made in your region, in partnership with local businesses, so the value stays close to home. Engineered for your crop and the conditions it grows in.
Apply
Designed to integrate with your current nutrient program, developed with regional agronomists so it works with the machinery and timing you already use.
Proving it in the paddock.
We’re putting our products to the test across a range of food and fibre crops, on real paddocks, with growers and agronomists. Every site is held to the standard of a proper trial: designed, replicated and measured.
- Properly designedReplicated plots and measured results, planned with local agronomists.
- Spread across districtsSites are chosen to cover different soils, crops and climates.
- Measured where it mattersWhere a crop’s response builds over time, we keep measuring beyond the first harvest.
- Shared with our grower communityResults from each site are shared with the growers and agronomists in our community, good or bad.
Questions growers ask us
What application rate will you use?
It depends on your crop, your district and how many crop cycles you want each application to cover. Our products are engineered for the crop, so rates are set to match how it grows rather than one rate for everyone. The demonstration sites are where those rates are being refined, and your agronomist can help work out what suits your paddocks.
Does it replace my fertiliser program?
No. It’s designed to integrate with your existing program and nutrient management plan.
Can silicon help my nitrogen go further?
Research overseas suggests it can. In field trials in rice, adding silicon held yields when nitrogen rates were cut by 20%, and other studies have found crops getting more out of each kilogram of nitrogen applied. Silicon doesn’t replace nitrogen, but it can help you get more from it.
When can I get it?
We’re producing material for the first demonstration sites now, and taking expressions of interest for supply. Register your interest and we’ll keep you up to date as results come in.
What exactly is it made from?
Quality-controlled silicon sources, including recovered glass from regional processors. Silicon from glass has been used on crops for a long time.
How are demonstration sites chosen?
To cover a spread of soils, crops and districts, working with growers, agronomists and university research partners. If you’d like to be considered, register your interest and we’ll be in touch.
A higher use for glass.
Recovered glass is rich in silicon, and too much of it ends up as road base or landfill. We work with regional processors to bring it into our feedstock, so material that can’t easily become a bottle again goes towards tougher crops instead.
Keeps glass in the region
Glass collected in a region can be put to work there, instead of being trucked long distances to be recycled. That helps keep costs down for councils and the communities that fund them.
Carbon potential
Research suggests carbon locked inside plant silicon can stay in the soil for a very long time.
Reef-minded
Helping more of each kilogram of nutrient stay in the crop and out of waterways.
Silicon on crops: older than you might think.
Silicon has been applied to crops for more than 170 years, and glass has been used as a silicon source for just as long.
- 1804Plants are found to be full of silicon
De Saussure shows that plants take silicon up from the soil, and that grasses take up the most.
- 1840Liebig proposes silicon fertiliser
The German chemist suggests soluble sodium silicate, or ‘water glass’, to feed crops.
- 1856Rothamsted starts the Park Grass experiment
Sodium silicate is among the treatments applied to plots from the first year, in what became the world’s longest-running field experiment.
- 1906Four decades of field data reach the Royal Society
Hall and Morison review more than 40 years of Rothamsted silicate results, reporting consistent yield responses.
- 1955Japan formalises silicate fertilisers
Silicate slag is officially approved as a fertiliser, and silicon becomes a routine input on rice.
- 1987China field-tests soluble silicon
Researchers at Nanjing evaluate water glass as a silicon fertiliser.
- 1994A leading plant nutritionist calls silicon an anomaly
Emanuel Epstein points out that plants hold as much silicon as phosphorus, calcium or magnesium, yet it is missing from standard nutrient solutions.
- 1999“The evidence is overwhelming that in the real world of plant life, Si matters”
Epstein calls silicon ‘quasi-essential’ for plants.
- 2012US regulators recognise silicon as a beneficial substance
- 2026Silicon joins the official US list of plant nutrients
- NowA breakthrough for broadacre
Resilien’s technology turns recovered glass into silicon products engineered to be cost-effective at broadacre scale, and made in the regions that grow them.
Sources include: Rothamsted Research; Royal Society (1906); Ma and Takahashi (2002); Epstein (1994, 1999); AAPFCO (2012, 2026).
Is a bottle really the best second life for a bottle?
Glass doesn’t wear out, but recycling systems leak. The Commonwealth’s 2019 infrastructure assessment estimated that about a third of the glass presented for recycling is lost in collection, sorting and processing.
If some of that glass could work harder in a paddock, it’s worth asking what the highest use really is. Our analysis found that even with a yield response well below what field trials have measured, putting recovered glass to work as silicon fertiliser could return around 50 times the value of recycling it into new bottles. Get in touch for the full picture.
Source: Sustainable Resource Use (2019), Commonwealth infrastructure assessment.
What stronger crops mean beyond the farm gate.
A better season helps the grower first, then everyone down the line: the processor, the haulage companies, the contractors and the businesses in town. In regions built around one industry, that flow-on is the difference between a community that thrives and one that just gets by.
Processing plants run on volume.
Sugar mills, milk processors and cotton gins all carry heavy fixed costs, so when throughput falls, the cost of every tonne rises. That’s why a lift in grower yields matters to the whole industry, not only to the farm.
Local jobs run on volume too.
In many regional towns, one industry is the lifeblood of the community, and carries a large share of local work. More volume means more hours across growing, haulage and processing, and helps keep the plants that anchor those jobs open. Making silicon fertiliser in the region adds new processing roles of its own.
of cane crushed in 2020, against about 34 million tonnes of milling capacity. With 60 to 75% of milling costs fixed (excluding cane purchase), every extra tonne lowers the cost of every tonne already crushed.
of all employment in Queensland’s cane regions comes from the sugar value chain, depending on the region.
Source: Resilien analysis, drawing on published industry and government data. Figures describe the current industry. Get in touch for the full analysis.
Join the movement for tougher crops.
Agriculture is critical to the future of regional Australia. Whether you farm, advise, process, supply or invest, join us in making sure it stays the cultural and economic heart of our communities.
Host a demonstration site
Put it to the test on your own paddocks, measured properly with local agronomists, and help shape products engineered for your crop.
Shape how it’s used
Help design demonstration sites and get the rates, timing and integration right for your district.
Back your region
Get involved in regional demonstration sites that look at yield, supply and what each part of the industry gains.
Help us scale
Help secure supply, fund the next step, or both. We’re building partnerships with people who share the vision.
Ready to connect? Let's talk.
Tell us a little about yourself and what you’re interested in. We’re working with growers, agronomists and researchers on demonstration sites, and taking expressions of interest for supply.