Plant–Microbe Interaction: Stress Management for Sustainable Agriculture

The current agricultural practices demonstrate a high dependence on agrochemicals to cope up biotic and abiotic stress, which in turn results in a negative impact on environment and increases the economic burden on farmers. Plant growth-promoting microbes (PGPMs) have emerged as an eco-friendly and economic approach to combat the multiple stress faced by plants. Aboveground and belowground interactions and colonization of PGPMs can contribute to increased plant growth as well as a heathy ecosystem. Plant growth-promoting bacteria, viz. Pseudomonas sp., Bacillus sp., Aneurinibacillu sp., plant growth-promoting fungi, viz. Trichoderma sp., and plant growth-promoting actinomycetes are the most studied PGPMs in the literature used for sustainable agriculture. The main mechanisms employed by PGPMs that can be exploited for mitigating stress in plants are plant growth promotion, availability of nutrients, production of secondary metabolites, enzymes and hormones, and modulation of plant oxidative stress and plant defense. Uses of a single PGPM or the consortia of microbes have widely been reported in the literature for ameliorating plants’ biotic and abiotic stress in greenhouse conditions. Despite the potential of PGPMs in sustainable agriculture, there are many hurdles that still need to be overcome. Research in sustainable release of microbes or their metabolites in the field condition, increasing shelf-life of the microbial inoculum, scaling up of fermentation, and supporting governmental policies can help the PGPMs complete their journey from lab to land and provide an eco-friendly and economic approach for sustainable agriculture.