Merck’s EMD Crop BioScience subsidiary plans to roll out a new seed-applied inoculant for the Canadian pea and lentil crop market.
PulseSignal II is described as a new technology that includes “naturally occurring molecules” to hasten the recognition step between plants and rhizobia, spurring earlier nodulation and nitrogen fixation.
“The earlier the nitrogen fixation process begins, the more there is available for plant growth and improved performance,” EMD Crop BioScience’s North American marketing manager Cathy Soanes said in a release last week.
The product’s “natural plant molecules” stimulate nitrogen-fixing rhizobia, which improves nodulation and delivers more consistent yields, the Milwaukee-based company said.
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On the Prairies, the company said, pulse crops are typically seeded into tough conditions for nodulation and nitrogen fixation, with low soil temperatures that are “particularly unfavourable” for nodulation to take place.
“The ineffectiveness of these first steps in the nodulation process, such as recognition of flavonoids by the bacteria, has been attributed to unsuccessful nodulation in cold soils,” the company said.
PulseSignal II “stimulates rhizobia and root hair curling for earlier nodule formation and nitrogen fixation, enhances roots for improved nutrient and water uptake (and) delivers more consistent, higher yields.”
EMD said its product testing over six years in Saskatchewan showed yield increases of 6.4 per cent and 7.5 per cent on lentil and pea crops, respectively, where PulseSignal II was used.
