Strategies for taxonomical characterisation of agriculturally important microorganisms

Abstract

Agriculturally important microorganisms mainly comprise bacteria, fungi, cyanobacteria, phytoplasmas and other groups like viruses. Most of the bio-inoculant technology for plant growth promotion (PGP) and biological control of plant diseases is based on bacteria, fungi and cyanobacteria. Plant Pathogenic organisms like Phytoplasmas cause serious diseases in economically important plants. Rapid and authentic identification of agriculturally important microorganisms is imperative before their use in bio-inoculant formulation as well as for diagnosis of pathogens to prevent the crops from damage. Many agricultural microbiologists and plant pathologists are still using traditional approaches of identification of an organism resulting into poor resolution of its taxonomic status. Polyphasic approach of microbial classification using the phenetic, chemotaxonomic and genotypic methods in combinations is the recent approach in microbial taxonomy. In current chapter, we discussed the recent advances in the taxonomy of bacteria (including cyanobacteria and phytoplasma) and fungi. We appeal agricultural microbiologists and plant pathologist for the use of polyphasic approach for better delineation of organism in focus in addition to traditional approaches.