ABSTRACT
Legumes have a reputation for maintaining soil fertility because they can assimilate nitrogen (N) from the atmosphere through symbiotic biological N2-fixation (BNF) with rhizobia. Legumes can derive most of their nitrogen requirement and supply some fixed nitrogen to the soil system through BNF. Thus, including legumes in the cropping system can substantially reduce the input of nitrogen fertilizer. To be more beneficial to legumes and cropping system, the rhizobial inoculant should contain high effective strains of rhizobia.
