SStorch wrote > > Well, we never use inoculants when planting legumes for cover crops, If this is working for you thats great but I think it is irresponsible to advocate this as good farming practice to others less fortunate on this list Do you have good nodule formation on your planted cover crops?? Its very easy to see! If yes then at some point the appropriate rhizobium has been brought onto your land.
> and in wild areas we always have volunteer legumes, so I must be nuts, what can I > say. Nothing nuts about this - you have locally acclimatised legumes with their locally acclimatised species specific rhizobium - its a symbiotic relationship. happens like this all over the world in wild areas. > What is in the inoculants you are using that is not in your soil? ??? The rhizobium required by the non local legumes for proper innoculation and nitrogen fixation!! > I have heard local extension agents talk about some kind of clover root rot. Different issue > We have clover as a volunteer all over the place. Legumes will grow fine without the rhizobium bacteria - they just become another nitrogen feeder instead of contributing back to the soil. > Observation is the key, seeing is believing...sstorch Maybe your long history of full on BD farming has encouraged or allowed the native microbes to adapt to the introduced legume species ?? Maybe you have everything so stoked up with high quality compost that the extra nitrogen would be a disadvantage?? That said - anybody that plants legumes as cover crop or pasture, without adding the specific strain of rhizobium for the seed, is nuts, until they have done it often enough to be sure there is an adequate buildup of rhizobium in the soil. Only then is it safe to cut back. Cheers Lloyd Charles
