Chapter 19 - Microbial interventions for improving agricultural performance under salt stress

Abstract

Plants are exposed to various types of stress, mainly biotic and abiotic, to which they respond by deploying some or the other defense mechanism. Among the abiotic stress factors, salinity has emerged as a serious threat to plant growth in general and crop plants in particular. The problem of salinity has aggravated due to factors such as overuse of land, pollution, other anthropogenic activities, climate change, etc. It is a global issue today as far as agriculture is concerned. Although plants have certain mechanisms to deal with stress, each strategy ceases to function beyond a certain limit of the stress condition. In this circumstance, the microbial community can be of great help to plants in dealing with the stress, especially the microbes residing near the plant. A number of microbes inhabit the region immediately surrounding the roots of plants and many of them are beneficial to the plants. These microbes prove to be of great potential in dealing with the problem of salinity and its adverse impact on plants. They help plants by maintaining osmotic balance and ion homeostasis, producing phytohormones, etc. This chapter throws light on the role of microbes in dealing with plant stress and their possible use in improving agricultural production.