Soybean is increasingly produced across Africa (about 1.3 million ha) and offers huge benefits in terms of protein sufficiency and value addition including animal feeds and processed and protein-enriched foods. Investing in soybean production, including inoculants, generates income for farmers, strengthens import substitution, contributes positively to the health and nutritional status of farming families, and improve soil fertility through the crop's large capacity for biological nitrogen fixation. Indeed, Africa is now poised for a soybean revolution and inoculation plays an important role in this growth.. For the first time, accompanying production technologies are now in place including high-yielding and disease-tolerant crop varieties, specially-blended fertilizers and weed management strategies that when employed in combination close yield gaps, taking yields to 2.5 + ton per ha.

NoduMax contains Bradyrhizobium japonicum strain USDA 110 at a density of at least 1 billion live cells per gram of inoculant. The quality is tested using drop plate counts on Congo Red Yeast Extract Mannitol agar. This is a pure product, but is also tested for microbial contaminants using Glucose-Peptone agar.

NoduMax is applied to soybean seed just before planting. First the gum arabic adhesive is dissolved in clean, hot water, applied to 10 to 15 kg of soybean seed, mixed to coat the seed exterior, the inoculant added, and the seeds mixed again until the inoculant appears as a fine brown powder uniformly distributed upon the seeds. Seeds should be planted shortly after application and protected from direct sunlight. This is referred to as the two-step method and results in the most uniform distribution on the seeds. An alternative, simpler method involves mixing the inoculant to the adhesive solution, and then applying them to the seeds but this technique tends to clump.