Innovations
Soybean biologicals remain a good investment
By Larry Lee Filed Under: Ag Innovations, Ag Inputs, Agronomy, Innovations, Soybeans
An agronomist says soybean seed inoculants remain a good investment for farmers.
Kurt Seevers with Verdesian says the rhizobia in the treatment helps provide adequate nitrogen for crops without having to add as much fertilizer. “If you find something that’s going to give you a return on investment, it doesn’t matter how big that return is, as long as it’s a return, then you’re making money.”
Seevers says many farmers believe having rhizobia in the soil means they don’t need to add more, but he says when the soybean plant deteriorates in the fall, the rhizobia leave the nodules and compete for resources in the soil making them less effective. “They’re inside the nodule and then all of the sudden, boom, they’re out into the soil, and they’ve got to compete for resources with everything else that’s in the soil. It’s just not a good environment and we lost a whole bunch of them fairly quickly.”
Seevers says it’s a good idea to inoculate soybeans with a rhizobia treatment every year because the older population isn’t doing as much for the plants as the freshly-added inoculant.
