Soybean innoculant?

[Dave from MN]

How many of you use soybean innoculant? I ordered my spring seed yesterday(ouch) I got a cash discount and new customer discount so that helped. I wonder if I should amend my order and buy seed for next year so I get the "new customer"discount on , or isnt that a good idea as to seed quality(corn & beans), any way back to the question. I have sandier drier soils, I only no one person thats adds that innoculant to his beans at planting time, he likes it, but with the drought it was hard to tell if it helped. What are your guys opinions? I can never seem to just ask 1 simple question can I?

 

[IaGary]

Innoculant is only needed on land that has not been in soybeans for several years. It occurs naturally when beans are planted every few years in the same field.

So if where you are planting your beans has been in beans in the last 5 years or so don"t bother with it.

Gary

 

[Dave from MN]

That helps, one feild has been corn/beans rotation for 20+ years, they other one has been a failed pasture mix for the last 5 years. I am hesitant putting beans on that peice, poorer soil, but I think beans will be a better bet than corn, till I can get manure on it next fall.

 

[John (C-IL)]

I'll agree with Gary with the addition that on the sandy soil innoculant could be a good deal, especially on that pasture land. Those little innoculant microbes hang out in the organic matter and if the organic matter is low there may be an advantge to using innoculant.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Innoculant costs very little per acre. Sometimes as little as a buck. And even if the field has had beans recently and you are no till, the rhyzobia are only going to be close to the row, not distributed everywhere and its possible the next planting won't be close all the time.

And there are different varieties of rhyzobia the help beans. Old innoculations may not be as good as newer varieties. America's Best claims to have three varieties and with great activity to show a difference. Beans I planted on 2004 with those grew lanky but yielded a lot better than beans I planted in 2006 where they were attacked by bean leaf beetles.

You might wish to have the beans for the pasture ground treated with the cruizer max package to hold off bean leaf beetles and some fungi and still plan for at least one insecticide spray in the mid summer for beetles, maybe aphids or mites. The need for a mid summer fungicide will be argueable all summer. Some places it will pay huge, some places it won't pay at all.

And after the beans are up a bit and have their first true trifoliate full grown, taking samples of that for tissue tests for micronutrients might show where a foliar spray would pay off.

Gerald J.

 

[Anonymous-0]

I'm with Gerald. Use it every year, too cheap of an input that has been proven to work. The first year used crap from the local seed store which probably had all dead bacteria. Got a little smarter and since have used HiStick which appears to be light years better. This year got sucked into the advertising and bought America's Best. Will see how it performs.

 

[Bruce Hopf]

I agree wiht the other guys on the subject. I planted soys 4 years ago, and had good luck with innoculant. I used the liguid stuff, Cant remember what it was called. I put so maon ounces to a bag. I just dumped th bag of seed in the old cement mixer, clean of corse, and whil it was running, I poured the innoculant in and mixed it up real good, and poured the seeds back into the bag. Plant the same day you mix for better results.