Microbial inoculants as agents of growth promotion and abiotic stress tolerance in plants

Abstract

The use of external chemical inputs such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides undoubtedly resulted in huge increase in agricultural products in the past many decades. Such indiscriminate use of agrochemicals has however resulted in various ecological imbalances and environmental disasters in various parts of the world. The use of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) as biofertilizers and/or as biocontrol agents to enhance plant growth, increase yield, and suppress diseases in a wide range of agricultural crops is gaining momentum. If PGPR inoculants are to replace agrochemicals in the near future, the search for effective strains must focus on isolation and screening of single or consortium of the bacterial strains that have multiple traits. Moreover, a better result in microbial inoculant development could be achieved by investigating the different modes of actions in disease suppression and plant growth promotion, detection of important genes and traits associated with these, bacterial-host plant interaction, as well as relationships between the bacteria and various environmental factors.