A field study under no-tillage straw mulch found that microbial inoculants do not work the same way across products. M44 increased plant height, while CF produced the highest grain weight per plant at 262.58 g. The products also shifted soil organic carbon and phosphorus, with M44 raising SOC to 10.05 g kg-1 and CF boosting available P to 20.55 mg kg-1. The takeaway: product choice matters, and soil response does not always match plant response. Farmers should test inoculants in their own management system rather than assume all microbial mixes behave alike. The study's random forest model explained 63.6% of grain weight variation, pointing to ear height, biomass, and soil conditions as key drivers. This supports a simple rule: match the product to the crop and soil, then judge it by both plant and soil outcomes.
