How Have Inoculants And Soybean Production Changed?

Historically, the carrier for inoculant has been nonsterile peat powder applied to the seed at planting, according to Shawn Conley and Ellsworth Christmas, Purdue University Department of Agronomy. Recently, a number of improvements have been made in inoculant manufacturing, including the use of sterile carriers, the addition of stickers, the introduction of liquid carriers, the use of concentrated frozen products, the introduction of new organism strains, the use of preinoculants, and (more recently) the introduction of inoculants with extended biofertilizer and biopesticidal properties.

All of these improvements have resulted in more concentrated products that have a longer shelf life. Most modern products provide anywhere from 500,000 to over 1 million rhizobia cells per seed when used according to manufacturer recommendations. Despite the large numbers of bacterial cells per seed, each nodule may be the product of a different serological group of rhizobia. It is very difficult to replace the indigenous rhizobia population with an introduced strain, even if it is superior in terms of nitrogen fixation efficiency.

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Soybean production practices on Indiana farms also have undergone many changes, including:

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  1. The increased use of no-till
  2. The greater use of narrow rows
  3. Earlier planting
  4. Higher seeding rates with narrow rows
  5. Improved planting equipment
  6. Increased grain yields
  7. Larger farms

These changes in Indiana soybean production, coupled with soybean inoculant improvements, suggest that inoculant use should be re-evaluated. For more information, click here.

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