Microbes for Cold Stress Resistance in Plants: Mechanism, Opportunities, and Challenges

Abstract

Cold stress (CS) is one of the major hindrances for quality crop production and global food security. Under cold environment, different kinds of alterations in the biochemical, physiological, and molecular processes of plants have been observed. Hence, it becomes mandatory to develop eco-compatible, sustainable , and economically sound options for ensuring quality food grain production of high mountainous regions. The use of cold-tolerant microbes (CTM) enhances growth of agricultural crops under low temperature environment. Additionally, it provides an economically captivating and environment-friendly means for protecting agricultural crops from cold stress injuries. They can also trigger crop growth by improving nutrition acquisition, regulating release of plant hormone and siderophores in addition to the activation of antioxidant system under low temperature conditions. As a result, this plant-CTM interaction under cold environment is vital and CTMs may act as a principal cold stress engineer to answer global agricultural tribulations of high altitude. In this chapter, attempts have been made to explore about CTM and their mechanism of action to boost agricultural production in sustainable manner under low temperature environment.