Found this innoculant

This states it is good for beans and peas. But I am pretty certain I read here on the boards that each of those require a separate one.

Click here

Is it possible that they have combined the two or is this not a good one? Thanks.

That is a good brand and it is a mixture of strains for most gardens. You would need something different if you are planting soybeans, alfalfa, lentils, etc. but it has what you need for peas and beans and sweet peas.

Thank you.

I was just about to buy it but it is $3.10 for the shipping (regular mail). Doesn't that seem extreme?

Any other suggestions?

I don't know if it is excessive or not. Half a packet did 16 sqs of peas, 10 sqs of beans, 8 sqs of sweet peas for me this spring. I buy it locally when I do seed buying in the winter.

I got mine 'Burpee's brand' at the local Lowes store, think I pd. $3 and it has the bacteria for beans, peas, and peanuts too!
Different brands have different stuff in them.
Jo

cpl100 wrote:Thank you.

I was just about to buy it but it is $3.10 for the shipping (regular mail). Doesn't that seem extreme?

Any other suggestions?

Get some animal dungs in your compost and grow your own innoculants for free instead & get some great compost to boot ?????

I found it curious that Plantoid, who has been seriously gardening since he was a wee lad (that's the only English expression I could think of...how about knee-high to a grasshopper?!), had never heard of inoculants until we started talking about them earlier this year. After learning more about them, he looked around, and couldn't find anybody in England who uses it. Apparently, they grow legumes just fine without it. Must be the weather!

boffer wrote:I found it curious that Plantoid, who has been seriously gardening since he was a wee lad (that's the only English expression I could think of...how about knee-high to a grasshopper?!), had never heard of inoculants until we started talking about them earlier this year. After learning more about them, he looked around, and couldn't find anybody in England who uses it. Apparently, they grow legumes just fine without it. Must be the weather!

The secret lies in the soil , plants are like flies and we all know what they eat by the ton .

What I suspect is that for most farmers & gardners there will be little beneficial bacterial & fungal action in the soil , this could be due to the types of soil and the extreme use of artificial fertilizers instead of animal dung based ones.

It's a given that using them will promote the fungal growths that give up plant nutrients but what did " Good ole Uncle Sammy's boys and girls " do before the advent of the inocculants both on the farms and in the home gardens.

They traded spadefuls of soil from fields where legumes grew well. Most of the stories I have heard have to do with trying to grow alfalfa, getting a starter of soil was considered a make or break on the success of the new field. I am not sure it was done for garden peas and beans as much. Beans are native to the Americas so I am guessing their strains of Rhizobia are native in many soils here but that would not be so for Old World legumes. I would be concerned with an MM with out lots of home made compost (and compost with a bit of soil in it as an inoculant is best). I wonder if the inoculant can survive in peat heavy soil? Peat is a natural antiseptic.

I have grown peas and beans for years and never used an inoculant... usually because I have never had one.
I bought some this year, but then forgot about it until after I planted. :scratch:
I usually have lots of peas and beans....

Are the addition of innoculants used to make the gardener feel better or the garden

I suspect that Plantoid has a very good point... it matters more in soil that has been traumatized with excessive chemical fertilizers. So I am thinking i do it mostly from habit and because I thought it such a cool idea years ago
I still think it would be a good idea with soil of questionable bio-viability (like lots of bagged ingredients) to help get the soil ecosystem going.

Well, I can say one thing. A few weeks ago I tried starting some beans (four seeds) in a large pot or organic potting soil and not one came up. I haven't been able to find an inoculant locally so I planted one of my new SFG squares with two different types of green beans (Blue Lake and Royal Burgandy). We shall see if the MM makes the difference, though it's not a true test as the other seeds were Tenderpod.)

I am still looking for a source locally. Hopefully, I will find it within a week and then plant my second square with green beans. (Say, I digress, but does anyone know what is the yield for a bush bean plant? I tried googling it without success.)

cpl100 wrote:Well, I can say one thing. A few weeks ago I tried starting some beans (four seeds) in a large pot or organic potting soil and not one came up. I haven't been able to find an inoculant locally so I planted one of my new SFG squares with two different types of green beans (Blue Lake and Royal Burgandy). We shall see if the MM makes the difference, though it's not a true test as the other seeds were Tenderpod.)

I am still looking for a source locally. Hopefully, I will find it within a week and then plant my second square with green beans. (Say, I digress, but does anyone know what is the yield for a bush bean plant? I tried googling it without success.)

Have you looked on Ebay USA to purchase it?

I took a gamble and looked up soil inoculants on sticky Wikki :- from what I read and reading the references not much shows before the 1990's . The various microbiologicals and fungal spore inoculants are present in healthy soils apparently .

We touched on things in the soils like bacteria and fungi when I was younger and at school in the early 1960's .
We grew them on aga aga in petri dishes so we could see what they looked like under the microscope .
We referred to the soil as " live soil " if they were present and in need of manuring if they were inshort supply .

What did suprise me is that the artifical cultured stuffs cannot apparently survive frosts so it seems manure based composts have yet another bonus point for the squarefoot gardener..

Does this mean that if I used bagged dehydrated cow manure (which I did) I would not need it? This is in a brand new bed.

Thanks.

ONE thing i have learned this year, from a fellow gardener, is to take all of the seeds i am planting and put them between wet paper towels and place them in a warm place
That way you know what is going to grow and which seeds are duds
There is a certain percentage listed on each package as to what percentage of seeds on average tend to germinate.
So by starting them on paper towels you know which ones are going to sprout.

I did use an inoculant this year when I planted my bush and pole beans and I must say they are going crazy and growing really well. The pole beans are almost 7 feet tall and getting ready to flower. I feel that they are doing better than the ones that I planted last year without inoculant. I got a small bag at High Mowing Seeds online (I'm pretty sure that's where I got it).

cpl100 wrote:Does this mean that if I used bagged dehydrated cow manure (which I did) I would not need it? This is in a brand new bed.

Thanks.

I would try it for myself , but don't balme me if it does not work ..I'm wondering how they dehydrated it... natural air drying or using artificial / waste heat ?? Would dehydrating it kill off the fungal spores & vital bacteria ???

Field raised horses on grass meadows seem to have a great deal of bacteria and fungi in their droppings , so do free range chickens & ducks

One thing I did do earlier this year was to place various droppings in individual screw top jars , gave then a spray of water , screwed the tops down hard then put them away in a warm dark place.
The horse muck has some fantastic looking fungi within a few days
that looked like those throwing spoons people use when flinging a small ball for their dog but the colours were much more an opaque orange / fawn colour .

Didn't manage to observe the rest for Alison found them in the airing cupboard and nearly started world war three.

GWN wrote:I have grown peas and beans for years and never used an inoculant... usually because I have never had one.
I bought some this year, but then forgot about it until after I planted. :scratch:
I usually have lots of peas and beans....

+1
I bought some last year, forgot about it and found it in my seed box this year - where it stayed. Never used it before and don't think I need to.

GG

GWN wrote:ONE thing i have learned this year, from a fellow gardener, is to take all of the seeds i am planting and put them between wet paper towels and place them in a warm place
That way you know what is going to grow and which seeds are duds
There is a certain percentage listed on each package as to what percentage of seeds on average tend to germinate.
So by starting them on paper towels you know which ones are going to sprout.

How long should it take for them to sprout? And then you just plant the sprouted ones I take it. Does it then matter what direction they are planted? Sprout up or down or sideways? And this works for all plants, not just beans, correct? Thanks.