Increasing quality inoculant production capacity and demand in Vietnam through research and on-farm extension programs

Abstract

Farmers in Vietnam currently fertilise legumes such as soybean and groundnut with N, rather than inoculate with rhizobia. Replacing fertiliser N with rhizobial inoculants would save Vietnamese farmers A$50-60 million annually in input costs and, at the same time, help facilitate the desired expansion in legume production. There would also be positive environmental outcomes. We report on an AusAID-funded project that aimed to increase production and use of high-quality legume inoculants in Vietnam through a focus on improving inoculant production capacity and quality assurance (QA), inoculant R&D and effective on-farm extension programs. Governmental research institutes, the Vietnam agricultural extension service and private sector companies involved in the project. With the private sector companies, the aim was that they would scale-up inoculant production and progressively take over supply as the technology and markets were developed. During 2007-09, all three institutes were engaged in training and research on all aspects of inoculant production. During that time, a total of 36 replicated, multi-treatment research and 168 unreplicated, single treatment demonstration field trials were also conducted in the major legume-production areas of Vietnam. The Australian rhizobial strains were the most effective in terms of nodulation, biomass yield and grain yield. Compared with the uninoculated control, CB1809 and NC92 increased nodulation of soybean and groundnut, respectively, by an average of 58%, biomass yield by 30% and grain yield by 29%. Economic analysis of the demonstration trials indicated an average increase in farmer profits of 4.500.000VND/ha, through a combination of reduced inputs of fertiliser Nand increase grain yields. The trials also proved effective for training and extension purposes with 3400+ person visits to the sites and evidence from farmer surveys of dramatically increased knowledge of inoculants.