Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria for Sustainable Stress Management

Abstract

Crop plants are subject to various types of biotic stresses right from the stage of seed germination till the harvesting stage. Attacks by a wide variety of already known and newly emerging pests, nematodes, and microorganisms are some of the major threats to the crop plants and therefore to the agriculture productivity. Plant diseases caused by different pathogens are known to cause loss of more than 30% crop yield, resulting in decreased agriculture produce of the country thus increasing the economic hardships of the farmers. Traditionally these plant diseases have been managed so far using various agrochemicals. However, the liberal, untargeted, and nonspecifc use of these agrochemicals increases the cultivation cost of crops, besides posing threat to the health of human beings, soil, useful soil microflora, and environment. With increasing awareness of demerits of agrochemicals and benefts of organic agriculture and food safety, the use of plant bioinoculants that serves as biocontrol agents (against a wide variety of phytopathogens) besides plant growth promotion activity is now gaining signifcance as the best and eco-friendly alternative to the hazardous agrochemicals. Chemical-free management of pests and diseases, agro-ecosystem well-being, and health issues in humans and animals have become the need of the hour. The use of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) as biotic stress managers offers good management of plant diseases (biotic stress). They also provide induced systemic resistance (ISR) and systemic acquired resistance (SAR). Application of PGPR as bioinoculants can help in reducing the loss of crop yield due to the attack by various phytopathogens, and hence PGPR has gained considerable attention among researchers, agriculturists, farmers, and policymakers and consumers.The book entitled Rhizobacteria in Biotic Stress Management contains 16 book chapters contributed by eminent researchers, scholars, and academicians from around the globe. It deals with the various mechanisms and strategies adopted by PGPR in managing the biotic stress, i.e., plant disease. Various mechanisms adopted by PGPR for the lysis of phytopathogens have been discussed in this book. The principal mechanisms, namely production of antibiotics, production of antifungal metabolites, induction resistance, seed biopriming, and plant small RNAs, have been encompassed in this book. This book highlights salient features on the application of PGPRs as effective managers of biotic stress (plant diseases) in agricultural crop plants to lend a hand to scientists working in this feld. Rhizobacteria in Biotic Stress Management is a timely effort for sustainable agriculture. I compliment the authors and hope that the teachers and researchers working in this area would make use of this publication.