Rhizobium is a microbe that binds Nitrogen from the ground for soybean roots to absorbs. Their function was like nature fertilizer provider for soybean plants. A team from LIPI (Indonesian Institutes of Sciences) discovered one special strain of Rhizobium, called Rhizobium B64. The strain worked well for soybeans by boosting productivity and improving the soybean plants resistance to diseases. More beans producing by soybeans using B64.
Soybean seeds that inject by B64 called Kedelai Plus. While indonesian farmer can produce average 1,2 tons per hectare, Kedelai Plus was yielding 2,4 – 4,5 tons per hectare.
The team already discovered a way to inject Rhizobium B64 into soybeans with the help of a special vacuuming machine. LIPI able to turn any type of soybean variety into Kedelai Plus. The goverment needs to up-scale the machine and produce Kedelai Plus in various seed centers so farmers can purchase them at affordable prices. For the time being, farmer can bring their own seed to LIPI in Cibinong to be injected with Rhizobium B64 at cost of Rp. 50.000 for 20 kg soybean seed.
Reference: The Jakarta Post, Saturday, 19 January, 2008
Tags: popular science blog, tempe
