Good point.  That was a given for me and those of you who know me know why.  Grandpa always inoculated, dad always did and I always did.

Then David Kuykendall found the new strain in the early nineties that only survives one year but greatly increases N production in the nodule thereby greatly increasing chance for an increase of yield in soybeans.  Even soybeans after corn and soybeans after soybeans!  We argued about that here since the first day ag talk came on line and before that on Crop Scouting on www.agriculture.com where most of us older guys met.

The race for improved strains started after the lab in St. Joe Mo introduced the new and improved USDA Strain many of you used, they got bought out by Becker Underwood so ABM or Advanced Biological Management was started and today we have really competitive strains in Excalibre, GraphEx and America's Best.

Inoculation has come a long way since Kuykendall's finding which happened while he was studying sugar beets!  Billions of dollars have been returned to farmers thanks to USDA, one little thing I am proud of as a taxpayer and farmer/educator.

Ed