Abstract
Phosphorus (P) is a critical nutrient that plays an essential role in improving soil fertility for optimum plant growth and productivity. It is one of the most deficient macro-nutrients in agricultural soils after nitrogen and is considered inadequate for plant growth and production. To P availability in soils, the farmers are applying huge amounts of synthetic P fertilizers that adversely affect the wider environment, groundwater, soil fertility and microbial population. Many beneficial microbes are known to release and supply soluble P for improving growth and yield of a variety of plants in a sustainable manner in P deficient soils. Thus, inoculation of these microbes, including arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) to soil to enhance crop production without harming the environment, is an alternative approach to chemical fertilizers. The combined role of AMF and PSB in P solubilization is not well understood and the application and mode of action of these microbial groups are often naive due to variation in the environment. Therefore, the current review article would develop a better understanding of the interactive role and mechanisms of AMF and PSB in improving P availability from both organic and inorganic sources in a sustainable crop production system. Finally, the current review would loop out further avenues for researchers interested to commercially produce effective AMF and PSB-based biofertilizers for sustainable management of phosphorus over a wide range of agricultural crops worldwide.
Highlights
Phosphorus (P) is the second most essential nutrient required for plant growth after nitrogen across the global agricultural lands [1]
This study indicates that the inoculation of rice plants with phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) amended with Rock Phosphate (RP) is a suitable and economical approach to enhance growth and P uptake by plants of this species
Biotechnological and molecular approaches could be adopted to increase our understanding about the microbial mode of actions for P solubility, that could lead to more successful plant-microbe interactions in sustainable crop production systems
Summary
Phosphorus (P) is the second most essential nutrient required for plant growth after nitrogen across the global agricultural lands [1]. The use of beneficial microbes like arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB) for P solubility and crop productivity is getting more attention [11,12,13,14,15,16,17]. These microbes take part in the turnover and bioavailability of insoluble soil nutrients through different functional processes [18,19]. The current review would loop out further avenues for researchers interested to commercially produce the PSB and AMF based biofertilizers to be effective in P management over a wide range of crops
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