Chapter Two - Mechanisms of Plant-Microbe Interactions and its Significance for Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract

Since plants are immobile, they are unable to overcome harsh environmental conditions, attack of predators, parasites and pathogens, etc. To fight against these abiotic and biotic agents, they have evolved a number of mechanisms which are influenced by different types of association between plants-microbes. In general, plant-microbe association may be positive (tolerance of biotic and abiotic stress and induced growth) or negative (leading to the disease development) depends on surrounding climatic factors and ecological diversity. Such interaction is mediated by an array of signal molecules released by root and shoot exudates as secondary metabolites products to boost the plant immunity. Therefore, the understanding of communication mechanism between plant and microbes is imperative to mitigate the adverse impacts of biotic and abiotic agent to agriculture crop, and to develop newer strategies for sustainable agriculture. This chapter provides an overview on significance of plants-microbes interaction and its mechanism with emphasis on pathogenesis and mutualism. Further, their applications as biofertilizer, rhizoremidation, and biocontrol agents along with the factors affecting plant-microbe interactions, and future research direction have also been discussed.