Australia: Local inoculant production simplifies timely supply

The Australian Inoculants Research Group (AIRG) estimates that the amount of extra nitrogen inoculants make available to Australian pulse and following grain crops every year is worth about $4 billion based on the cost of replacing it using fertilisers.

That great return on a small investment explains why inoculants are so popular and why – as pulse plantings have fluctuated from season to season – meeting last-minute demand has been an issue for all suppliers in recent years.

Now BASF have solved that problem.

After a year when the supply of so many farm inputs was disrupted by factory shutdowns overseas, the $1.6 million upgrade of BASF’s BioTech Solutions production facility at Somersby on the NSW Central Coast is looking even more timely and important than it seemed when it was completed just over twelve months ago.

Nodulator^®, BASF’s market-leading granular inoculant, is now entirely locally produced. That means you can order any of the products in the BASF inoculants range with confidence in their availability as well as the productivity boost they’ll provide.

“We only started granular production last January and were able to meet the whole of last year’s demand in the first quarter,” says Somersby Site Manager Kathleen Johns. “So we’re now in a really good position for 2021. Forecasts are up and so is production. We’ve processed the early orders and looked at the forecasts and planned accordingly. Our products are starting to go out now and we expect the whole process to go very smoothly.”

Granular inoculants produced offshore have increased their market share over the last decade or so at the expense of inoculants cultured here using local rhizobia strains. Now growers can have the best of both worlds.

The switch to local manufacture has made Nodulator the first and only granular inoculant on the market that offers both the extra convenience and accuracy of granules – which can be applied through the seeder as the crop is sown – and the added quality assurance of an AIRG Green Tick, showing that it has been independently tested and approved for use in Australian conditions.

While Nodulator goes from strength to strength, Kathleen is quick to point out that Australia’s best-known inoculant brand – which Somersby has been producing for decades – is still doing as well as ever.

For most growers who have always used peat-based inoculants, the Nodulaid^® range remains ‘the original and the best’. It’s been around since 1953 – much longer than any of the alternatives – and the processes BASF uses to manufacture it and test its levels of active rhizobia have been regularly updated to ensure it remains the pacesetter. Naturally every bag of Nodulaid also carries the Green Tick.

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  Yutian Lu

  yutian.lu@agropages.com