Inoculant | NexusBioAg

Ottawa Valley Farm Show

Mar 12- Mar 14 | Ottawa, Ontario

NexusBioAg is committed to launching innovative, cutting-edge products, with a focus on sustainability and regenerative agriculture.

Inoculants are natural, living organisms formulated into products that help promote healthier soil, and better nutrient availability and uptake.

These microscopic organisms (microbes) form associations with plants and create natural nutrient-rich by-products in a form that is easier for the plant to absorb. While these beneficial microbes occur naturally, inoculant products introduce a larger microbial population into the soil to improve nutrient availability and uptake.

Our inoculants can offer real advantages to growers, improving nutrient availability and crop nutrient uptake, enhancing root and shoot growth, and ultimately improving yield potential.

Available Formulations

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Why inoculants are important for your crop

Biologicals play an important role in making these nutrients available to your crop

Your investment in nutrients like nitrogen, potassium and phosphate are key to reaching your crop’s yield potential. Getting the most out of those investments is vital to your bottom line. There are a number of inputs your crops rely on for adequate growth. These include sunlight for photosynthesis and chlorophyll production, water for assisting in nutrient uptake and transpiration, plus the nutrients themselves.

Nutrients are found naturally in the soil, but many are not available or in an adequate supply and need to be provided by you the grower. Nitrogen, potassium and phosphate are three nutrients familiar to almost any grower. They’re fundamental to your crop’s health and vigor, as they impact the growth of your crop’s leaves, stalks, stems and root system. When your soil is lacking in any of these key nutrients, they need to be added as fertilizer or supplied by a biological product.

A high-performing inoculant has two characterisitics: Infectiveness and Effectiveness.

Infectiveness is the ability of a rhizobia strain to provide excellent nodulation with the host crop. The most successful strains are chosen for their ability to successfully compete against other strains and become the primary source of nodulation. Specific rhizobia is also chosen for environmental survivability and the ability to infect a legume’s cultivars. LCO (lipochitooligosaccharide) technology, a signaling molecule, is used to drive communication in the rhizobia-legume nodulation system. When present, LCO allows for the nodulation process to begin earlier, improving plant performance.

Effectiveness of a rhizobia strain is the ability to efficiently fix nitrogen. NexusBioAg continuously field-tests and selects products that contain strains proven to be dependable and efficient fixers of nitrogen.

Penicillium
bilaiae(P. bilaiae)

The soil fungus is the key to the equation. It grows along the plant roots and makes less-available forms of phosphate available to the plant. Phosphate is an important component that drives the needed energy for the nitrogen fixation process.

Early-season phosphate availability is difficult when the plant does not have a root mass or the energy to develop a root mass. Penicillium bilaiae helps with both of these issues by making phosphate available.

LCO Technology

LCO is a molecule involved in the rhizobia legume nodulation process. When the LCO molecule is present at the time of planting, it allows for the nodulation process to begin, independent of variety, soil and environmental conditions. The benefit of earlier nodulation initiation is earlier nitrogen availability to the plant, which supports plant growth such as root and shoot development. The result of this early-season activity is better plant performance. LCO is an important component in nodulation as a key driver in the communication between plants and rhizobia.

Bacillus amyloliquefaciens and Trichoderma virens

The Bacillus amyloliquefaciens and Trichoderma virens based treatments have the ability to solubilize organic nutrients and release phosphate in the soil not readily available to the plant. Thus, helping to increase availability and uptake of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium.

The Importance of Phosphate and Inoculants

Factors Affecting Phosphate Availability

Phosphate Is Less Available

In soils containing high levels of cations, such as calcium, magnesium, iron or aluminum.
In soils with high clay content.
At colder soil temperatures.
To crops with a tap root system.
In dry soils.

Root and Shoot Development

Phosphate Is Crucial To Nitrogen Fixation

Research shows that phosphate nutrition has a significant, positive impact on nitrogen fixation. Good phosphate nutrition results in more nodules being formed and more active nitrogen fixation.

Phosphate helps move the energy from photosynthesis to the roots, where it is needed to fuel nitrogen fixation.
More extensive root growth provides greater opportunity for the development of nitrogen-fixing nodules.
Faster development of active nodules results in greater nitrogen fixation.
Phosphate nutrition increases the number and size of nodules, and the amount of nitrogen fixed by the plant.

Most phosphate fertilizer is also banded away from the seed in pea and lentil crops, resulting in limited early-season availability to the crop. Penicillium bilaiae helps overcome this limitation by providing early-season access to soil and starter fertilizer phosphate.

Penicillium bilaiae Increases the Availability of Phosphate

These graphs (from University of Manitoba research), show the increase in uptake of phosphate throughout the growing season when using Penicillium bilaiae on wheat.