Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Nov. 17, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Over the last few years farmers have experienced it all: wet, good, dry and really dry. Take last season for example, areas across the prairies had a lot of water early in the season and then experienced droughts later in the season. Farmers can experience stress in the fields all season, but soil health is where it all starts.
Maintaining an ideal soil structure can be challenging, especially because we don’t know what the weather will bring each spring. If it doesn’t rain a lot, salts in the soil that can cause Iron Deficiency Chlorosis (IDC) tend to accumulate because they aren’t washed out of the top part of the soil profile. If there is a lack of air (oxygen) in the soil, the microbial diversity that all crops depend on can be disrupted.
According to Matt Pfarr, Technical Sales Manager at Lallemand Plant Care, there are a few ways to help relieve early season stress in soybeans. “When planning for next season, we need to go back into fields and think, what do they really need? Growers can use a soybean variety with genetic tolerance to IDC, apply a chelated liquid iron fertilizer and use an inoculant like LALFIX® PROYIELD Liquid Soybean, which delivers more nitrogen fixation and offers increased iron solubilization to help manage IDC.”
Healthy roots and early nodulation are key for producing a healthy soybean crop. “Adding Bradyrhizobium elkanii (LALFIX® PROYIELD Liquid Soybean) into the soils will help with early nodulation and nitrogen production as symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria have likely been killed off in areas that were saturated or flooded for any length of time,” explains Pfarr. “Right in the same bladder (LALFIX® PROYIELD Liquid Soybean) there is also Delftia acidovorans. This active is really interesting as it is a fast-growing bacterium where we ultimately see quicker root growth and more root hairs. Then the Bradyrhizobium elkanii come along, find those hairs and form a nodule – an example of a great synergy.”
LALFIX® PROYIELD Liquid Soybean is a new leading formulation liquid inoculant with higher rhizobia survival and competitiveness. The liquid inoculant brings the first new species of rhizobium (Bradyrhizobium elkanii) to Canadian soils in 50 years. In partnerships with university research extensions, Delftia acidovorans is known to produce a significant amount of chaperone molecules that help solubilize iron for soybean availability. Improved nitrogen uptake leads to more carbon production, which leads to a bigger, greener, healthier plant with more pods. In replicated plot trials, LALFIX® PROYIELD Liquid Soybean showed a 30% average improvement in plant colour and a yield increase over competitor treatments.
Brendan Brown is a retailer from Oak River, Manitoba who treated soybeans with the liquid inoculant in 2021 for the first time. “This was our first year using LALFIX® PROYIELD Liquid Soybean. The single bladder made it much easier to use, you just pour it in and go. There is no waiting on mixing, which speeds up the process and saves us time. The 100 and 400 units also makes it easier to treat a range of acres. We did about half our soybeans this year with the LALFIX® PROYIELD Liquid Soybean and we will likely be using even more next year.”
“We want to save retailers and growers time in the spring – we know that’s the most valuable commodity, and we want to set them up for a successful season. No matter what the spring weather brings, applying LALFIX® PROYIELD Liquid Soybean will help mitigate abiotic stress and add a brand-new nitrogen fixing bacteria to produce a healthy, high yielding soybean crop,” adds Pfarr.
To learn more about LALFIX® PROYIELD Liquid Soybean or Lallemand Plant Care, please visit https://nextgenerationinoculants.ca/.
