Overview of biofertilizers in crop production and stress management for sustainable agriculture

Abstract

With the increase in world population, the demography of humans is estimated to be exceeded and it has become a major challenge to provide an adequate amount of food, feed, and agricultural products majorly in developing countries. The use of chemical fertilizers causes the plant to grow efficiently and rapidly to meet the food demand. The drawbacks of using a higher quantity of chemical or synthetic fertilizers are environmental pollution, persistent changes in the soil ecology, physiochemical composition, decreasing agricultural productivity and cause several health hazards. Climatic factors are responsible for enhancing abiotic stress on crops, resulting in reduced agricultural productivity. There are various types of abiotic and biotic stress factors like soil salinity, drought, wind, improper temperature, heavy metals, waterlogging, and different weeds and phytopathogens like bacteria, viruses, fungi, and nematodes which attack plants, reducing crop productivity and quality. There is a shift toward the use of biofertilizers due to all these facts, which provide nutrition through natural processes like zinc, potassium and phosphorus solubilization, nitrogen fixation, production of hormones, siderophore, various hydrolytic enzymes and protect the plant from different plant pathogens and stress conditions. They provide the nutrition in adequate amount that is sufficient for healthy crop development to fulfill the demand of the increasing population worldwide, eco-friendly and economically convenient. This review will focus on biofertilizers and their mechanisms of action, role in crop productivity and in biotic/abiotic stress tolerance.

Plant-growth promotion by proteobacterial strains depends on the availability of phosphorus and iron in Arabidopsis thaliana plants

“…Nutrients have special cycling and dynamics in the rhizosphere product of the plant-microbial interactions occurring there ( Carvalhais et al, 2013 ; Kuzyakov and Blagodatskaya, 2015 ). Thus, the use of mineral solubilizing and mobilizing microorganisms as single strains or synthetic communities has been suggested as an environmentally friendly approach to improving the nutritional status of plants ( Schütz et al, 2018 ; Oleńska et al, 2020 ; Marín et al, 2021 ; Chaudhary et al, 2022 ; Devi et al, 2022 ). Nevertheless, little is known about how plant-microbial interaction changes due to chemical compounds with different solubilities or bioavailability.…”

Additive Effect of the Composition of Endophytic Bacteria Bacillus subtilis on Systemic Resistance of Wheat against Greenbug Aphid Schizaphis graminum Due to Lipopeptides

“…A composition of LRF 26D + LRF 11VM proved to be the worst in a ratio of 50:50% ( Table 6 ). In reviews of recent years, the mechanisms of plant growth stimulation by endophytes, including under biotic stress, are well described, which are associated with direct and indirect effects [ 47 , 48 ]. The direct effect is associated with the synthesis of phytohormones by bacteria and influence nutrient availability for plants, while the indirect effect is associated with the synthesis of antibiotic metabolites and the triggering of systemic resistance [ 47 , 48 ].…”

Enhanced legume growth and adaptation to degraded estuarine soils using Pseudomonas sp. nodule endophytes

“…Through atmospheric nitrogen fixation ( Roy et al, 2020 ), phosphate mobilization/solubilization ( Etesami et al, 2021 ) and siderophores production ( Lurthy et al, 2020 ; Kang et al, 2021 ) bacteria provide N, P, Fe, and Zn to plants. PGPB also play a determinant role in plant adaptation and tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress ( Chaudhary et al, 2022 ). For example, bacteria with ACC-deaminase activity are able to break the ethylene precursor ACC, altering plant stress perception ( Penrose and Glick, 2003 ; Chandwani and Amaresan, 2022 ).…”