Crop Protection
LOCALLY PRODUCED NITROGEN YOU CAN BANK ON
With nitrogen fertilisers prices high and demand impacting supply, there’s another, natural option - make your own! That’s what soil inoculants can do, making them an obvious choice for paddocks being sown with grain legumes in this phase of your crop rotation. Both seed-applied (peat) and soilapplied in-furrow (granule) inoculants will boost the yield from chickpeas,
faba beans, field peas, lentils, or lupins. Even better, they’ll leave a bank of residual nitrogen in the soil to feed following crops. The Australian Inoculants Research Group (AIRG) has previously estimated that using inoculants saves farms across the country about $4 billion every year. That figure will go much higher in the current market. That’s a mighty good return on a surprisingly small investment,
especially if you also save on labour by applying a granular inoculant through the seeder at sowing. Of course, all farmers here and overseas face the same potential disruption to urea supplies. Should that cause an enormous spike in demand for inoculants, it may have a knock-on effect on inoculant supplies here too. BASF is one manufacturer that doesn’t have to worry about international supply chains to deliver inoculants. Production 71
