legume innoculants - they expire?

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Last year I bought a bunch of legume seed to try different stuff. I also bought the innoculant stuff. My wife says that she recently heard that the innoculant stuff lives in its little bag for just a few weeks! So all of my innoculant stuff is dead?

How long does this stuff live? Is there a way to make it last? Is there a place to buy it where you can be sure it is fresh?

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), April 08, 2002

Answers

Paul, most of what I've seen locally has an expiration date on it, just as food products do. When I have any left over, or I can get it cheaply at the end of the season, I put it in the freezer for the next time I want to innoculate new ground. It seems this was discussed when I took the Master Gardener training some 12-13 years ago--I've slept since then and memory may be faulty that it was during that training that I heard the freezing bit.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), April 08, 2002.

The innoculant is some form of bacteria, right? I take it that it does not normally occur naturally in soil, which is why we innoculate.

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), April 08, 2002.

it is a bacteria,, and you use it to let the beans sprout sooner, all soil has some of it,, just some places have more. The freezeing idea seems like it would work,, bubt if you used it last year,, and planted in the smae spot, ,you may not need it again this year.

-- Stan (sopal@net-pert.com), April 08, 2002.

I'm not aware of it helping the seeds sprout. The innoculants I use are bacteria that help form nodes on legumes which fix nitrogen in the soil. This will first show up in about a few months, after the crop is established.

The bacteria survives in the soil for a couple of years, longer in high organic soils, not so long in thin weak soils. There are different strains of it.

Never really worried about it overwintering in the bag, but I can see the concern. Would depend upon how you stored the seed in part.

--->Paul

-- paul (ramblerplm@hotmail.com), April 08, 2002.


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