Abstract
How to sustainably feed a growing global population is a question still without an answer. Particularly farmers, to increase production, tend to apply more fertilizers and pesticides, a trend especially predominant in developing countries. Another challenge is that industrialization and other human activities produce pollutants, which accumulate in soils or aquatic environments, contaminating them. Not only is human well-being at risk, but also environmental health. Currently, recycling, land-filling, incineration and pyrolysis are being used to reduce the concentration of toxic pollutants from contaminated sites, but too have adverse effects on the environment, producing even more resistant and highly toxic intermediate compounds. Moreover, these methods are expensive, and are difficult to execute for soil, water, and air decontamination. Alternatively, green technologies are currently being developed to degrade toxic pollutants. This review provides an overview of current research on microbial inoculation as a way to either replace or reduce the use of agrochemicals and clean environments heavily affected by pollution. Microorganism-based inoculants that enhance nutrient uptake, promote crop growth, or protect plants from pests and diseases can replace agrochemicals in food production. Several examples of how biofertilizers and biopesticides enhance crop production are discussed. Plant roots can be colonized by a variety of favorable species and genera that promote plant growth. Microbial interventions can also be used to clean contaminated sites from accumulated pesticides, heavy metals, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, and other industrial effluents. The potential of and key processes used by microorganisms for sustainable development and environmental management are discussed in this review, followed by their future prospects.
Highlights
Population growth and industrialization has put significant pressure on global ecosystems
The impacts were great, albeit, today, to maintain healthy environments, new technologies need to be applied, including microbial inoculations (Garcia, 2012). These can either replace or reduce agrochemicals, and clean areas heavily affected by pollution (Finley et al, 2010)
Ahmad et al (2011) reported a decrease in root and shoot length and increased stem diameter due to salinity stress and linked it to increased concentrations of ethylene. It has been well-documented that plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) strains belonging to genera Bacillus, Enterobacter, and Pseudomonas isolated from stress conditions contain ACC deaminase enzyme (Nadeem et al, 2009; Ahmad et al, 2011) and improve plant growth under biotic and abiotic stresses (Mayak et al, 2004; Zahir et al, 2010; Ahmad et al, 2012, 2013b; Glick, 2012)
Summary
Population growth and industrialization has put significant pressure on global ecosystems. Their application has a significant positive impact on plant growth and productivity (Nadeem et al, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016; Ahmad et al, 2016) through environmental acclimatization, enhanced resistance to pests, and improved stress resistance toward heavy metals, high salt concentrations, pathogens, and extreme pH. Improved plant growth by reducing the effect of Heydarian et al, 2018 higher ethylene production through ACC-deaminase activity
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