If you're still saving your own soybean seed year after year, the…

If you're still saving your own soybean seed year after year, the cheapest yield jump available isn't more land — it's inoculant. A 100g sachet treats 10kg of seed, and Ghana trials show yields 12-19% higher for it. Where inoculant is hard to find, plant a promiscuous variety instead — it nodulates on its own using rhizobia already in your soil.

Space for a full stand (75cm between rows, 5-10cm in the row) and check the underside of your lower leaves weekly from first flowering for soybean rust — it can take up to 80% of the crop if you're late to it. Cut when 80-85% of the pods have gone brown; wait longer and they split open on their own.

The crop pays twice too: sell the grain, and it leaves roughly 20kg of nitrogen per hectare behind for the maize you plant next, not more soybean.

What are you planting this season, inoculated seed or a promiscuous variety? Reply and tell us.

https://divisi.africa/insights/soybean-cash-legume-soil-builder-el-nino/