Can Someone Please Explain Inoculants?

[rlb165]

Lately I keep coming across the phrase, "Be sure and use the correct soil inoculant."
I've tried Googling, but I'm having trouble finding a good article that explains how soil inoculants work, or what kind I need.
Throw n' Mow pinto beans is what I'm wanting to inoculate.

Can somebody please give me a crash course, or link to a good article?

Thanks!

 

[Drycreek]

Don't have a link and wouldn't know how to post it anyway, but I'll take a stab. Innoculants, on legumes, enable the plant to capture it's own nitrogen. Beans, peas, clover, etc. need their own individual innoculants to be able to do this. Innoculants have nothing to do, as I understand it, with germination, or even how well your crop does, at least in my experience, but only the ability to capture nitrogen from the air. I plant IC peas yearly, and I've never used innoculants. Always have a good crop regardless. Whatever you follow up with, (i. e. WW), in the fall, will be the beneficiary of this captured nitrogen. Might save you some fertilizer. That's about all I know, but there are some folks here that can tell you more and better !

 

[FarmerD]

Inoculant, is a living beneficial bacteria, what "infects" the root system of legumes. This "infection" causes the legume (clover, peas, etc) to draw nitrogen out of the air and convert it in to a form that the legume can use to grow and reproduce. You will find this nitrogen attached to the roots and will look like little balls (or nodules) attached to it. When the plant dies, these nodules decompose into the soil, which gives your next crop some added nitrogen. In some cases, lots of nitrogen!

Lots of clovers come pre-innoculated and it really never hurts to add fresh, prior to plantrng. $5 worth of fresh (kept cool and be stored in the refrigerator, for next year), goes a long way and is cheap insurance.

What kind? What do you want to plant?

 

[FarmerD]

 

[FarmerD]

And the plant will convert the nitrogen in the plant, into protein, that the deer need.

 

[dogghr]

Innoculants on legume as said help promote formation of high nitrogen nodules on their roots. But be sure they are capable of making these nodules with out the inoculant, it just gives them a jump start on less than idea soil situation. If you are planting into previous legume type field, then inoculation is not going to hurt but not necessary. One of the farmer type methods is with Coca Cola as a wetting agent for inoculant if you want to stay basic. I've never used inoculant even when overseeding into fallow fields and never had issue. But all that been said above is true.
Read this for good info..http://extension.psu.edu/plants/cro...tion-of-legumes-for-maximum-nitrogen-fixation

 

[Semisane]

I believe that once you have a successful growth with seed treated with the proper inoculant, the bacteria associated with that plant (clover/beans/alfalfa/etc.) will stay alive in the soil for several years, especially if there is a good bit of organic matter for the bacteria to feed on. So that bacteria will pair up with non-inoculated seed planted in following years.

 

[X-farmerdan]

Rhizobial bacteria are what actually manufactures nitrogen in and for legumes. Rhizobial bacteria is THE INOCULANT.

If the bacteria (good bacteria) are not present in the soil, legume nodulation (the bumps on roots where the bacteria live) will not occur. The plant supplies nutrients to the bacteria. The bacteria manufactures nitrogen for the plant

Rhizobial bacteria is a family. It's like saying soybeans. There are many varieties. A particular legume must have a specific variety of bacteria. John needs Sally. Mike needs Sarah. Alfalfa needs a different variety of bacterial than pinto beans.

You soil may or may not have the proper bacteria. Buy some insurnace. Buy some innoculent.

When you open the bag of inoculant what you see is peat moss. You can't see the bacteria. Don't worry about this kind of bacteria being harmful. A friend had a kid expelled from school for bring bacteria for a science project!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizobia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhizobium

Mix the inoculant with the seed before planting. A little sugar water added to the seed is sticky enough to hold a few grains of inoculant. Or, buy pre-inoculated seed. The problem is making sure the incoulant is alive. Frankly, I don't like pre-inoculated seed.

 

[DocHolladay]

Don't know if this will work or not, but here is a bean I dug up a few weeks ago. No innoculant added. If it does work, sorry for it being sideways, I couldn't get it to flip. It plays right on my phone.

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMWQdINeYCWi_jeAZaPduF_lPDj5lEFgu8xvbE0

 

[rlb165]

Thanks for all the responses guys. I definitely have a better understanding of inoculants now.
The only thing I could find locally is for soybeans. Amazon ended up having something I can use. I'll probably try planting some pintos with, and some without inoculant, to see how much difference it makes.
Back in June, I threw out some pinto beans on top of some our worst soil, then covered them with grass clippings from our yard. They germinated fine, then turned yellow after they got about 6" tall. I'm curious to see if inoculant helps. If anything interesting happens, I'll post about it here.
Again, I appreciate you guys taking the time to explain this for me.

 

[FarmerD]

I am pretty sure that soybean innoculant will be the wrong one. If you wanted to go this route, you could order it from https://www.groworganic.com/bean-dry-inoculant-treats-1500-lbs.html . If you call them, I am sure they have smaller packs.

Using an inoculant is not a requirement to grow your pinto beans, as long as you supply enough nitrogen fertilizer, to take care of the plants needs. https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/plantsci/soilfert/sf720.pdf

 

[sagittarius]

Rhizobial bacteria are what actually manufactures nitrogen in and for legumes. Rhizobial bacteria is THE INOCULANT.

From one of your links above, the nitrogen absorbed and stored in the root nodules comes from the air.

"Rhizobia is “the group of soil bacteria that infect the roots of legumes to form root nodules”.[7] Rhizobia are found in the soil and after infection, produce nodules in the legume where they fix nitrogen gas (N2) from the atmosphere turning it into a more readily useful form of nitrogen (N). From here, the nitrogen is exported from the nodules and used for growth in the legume. Once the legume dies, the nodule breaks down and releases the rhizobia back into the soil where they can live individually or reinfect a new legume host.[7]"

 

[sagittarius]

Back in June, I threw out some pinto beans on top of some our worst soil, then covered them with grass clippings from our yard. They germinated fine, then turned yellow after they got about 6" tall. I'm curious to see if inoculant helps.

The yellowing is most likely due to lack of nutrient(s), rather than if bacteria was forming nodules on the roots. Legumes can also utilize Nitrogen in the soil just like any other green plant.

 

[X-farmerdan]

From one of your links above, the nitrogen absorbed and stored in the root nodules comes from the air.

"Rhizobia is “the group of soil bacteria that infect the roots of legumes to form root nodules”.[7] Rhizobia are found in the soil and after infection, produce nodules in the legume where they fix nitrogen gas (N2) from the atmosphere turning it into a more readily useful form of nitrogen (N). From here, the nitrogen is exported from the nodules and used for growth in the legume. Once the legume dies, the nodule breaks down and releases the rhizobia back into the soil where they can live individually or reinfect a new legume host.[7]"

I seek permission to use slightly untechnical words (ha! how am I doing?) that bring images to mind! Fixing nitrogen might be better envisioned as manufacturing. Maybe.

I fixed my car. I don't know how to fix nitrogen! All in good fun....

 

[DocHolladay]

Legumes can also utilize Nitrogen in the soil just like any other green plant.

I watched a video on producing high yielding soybeans. The soybeans use the nitrogen in the nodules to help with flowering and seed production. These farmers were going in right at flowering and applying nitrogen to help the plant. They added about 1/3 more seed/pod production to the yield. I'll see if I can find it again and post it. Pretty good info.

 

[sagittarius]

I fixed my car. I don't know how to fix nitrogen! All in good fun....

Yes, all in good fun. For years many in the foodplot world have had a lack understanding of legumes and nitrogen and tried to over simplify it to the point of being inaccurate. This has manifested itself into several misconceptions. "Legumes don't need nitrogen." "Legumes produce their own nitrogen." "Nitrogen benefits the grass and weeds and not legumes." Legumes do need nitrogen just like every other green plant. Legumes only act as a vehicle for specific bacteria to grow and store Nitrogen from the air in a symbiotic relationship. Nitrogen benefits all green plants, grass, weeds, legumes, brassicas, wheat, corn, alfalfa, ect. Yes, excess nitrogen in the soil could make the nodules a bit "lazy" .... but does it really matter if a clover field afixes 105 lbs of nitrogen instead of 110 lbs of nitrogen for next years crop, if 30 lbs of nitrogen are applied two weeks before hunting season improved palatability and taste to attract more deer now?

I watched a video on producing high yielding soybeans. The soybeans use the nitrogen in the nodules to help with flowering and seed production. These farmers were going in right at flowering and applying nitrogen to help the plant. They added about 1/3 more seed/pod production to the yield. I'll see if I can find it again and post it. Pretty good info.

What? Legumes benefiting from mid season applied nitrogen to increase yield? Tis Blasphamy! LOL.

 

[rlb165]

This came yesterday:

What I'm hoping to find out is if the right inoculant will help beans fix or manufacture enough nitrogen from the air to prevent the yellowing. Also, one of my goals is to see if I can grow healthy bean plants on this poor soil, without using synthetic fertilizer.
Just a few weeks ago, these plants were so yellow that I didn't think they would survive.

They were actually worse than this at one point, but I didn't take a picture.


Just to see what would happen, I did a foliar application of a weak solution of Redmond Mineral Salt. I know this sounds crazy, but a few days later I checked on the beans, and they looked better. They were starting to green back up. Then, a few days later, deer found them and ate all the tops out of them. I thought that was the end of them. There was nothing left but brown stems sticking up out of the ground. But then, a couple of days ago, I checked them again and they are sprouting new leaves.

It's almost like they're miniature Mineral Stumps.
Who knew that a $1 bag of beans from the Dollar General store could be so entertaining?

Here's a video of a talk given by a farmer from North Dakota named Gabe Brown. One of the things he talks about is getting away from synthetic fertilizers by using diverse multi-species cover crops that gradually regenerate the soil. This kind of stuff fascinates me, and videos like this gave me the idea to do this silly little experiment, which, literally, doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

Sent from my iPhone using Deer Hunter Forum

 

[sagittarius]

What I'm hoping to find out is if the right inoculant will help beans fix or manufacture enough nitrogen from the air to prevent the yellowing. Also, one of my goals is to see if I can grow healthy bean plants on this poor soil, without using synthetic fertilizer. Just a few weeks ago, these plants were so yellow that I didn't think they would survive.
Sent from my iPhone using Deer Hunter Forum

Maybe, if you are lucky the right inoculant might give the beans enough N fixation to meet 70% of its needs. Providing all other needs are met, with available soil nutrients, and residual N already in the soil. Without a dry fertilizer application you may need years of soil building organic matter and amendments, manure, chicken litter, green manure, what ever. Good innoculation will not cure multiple soil deficiencies. A short term fix of follier applied nutrients will not make up for long term soil nutrient deficiencies. Focus on the soil, organic matter, build up of P and K, sulfur, boron, calcium, magnesium, PH .... when the soil is in good shape you can grow any high preference forage. No magic bullet will bypass mother nature.