PGPR: A Sustainable Agricultural Mitigator for Stressed Agro-Environments

Abstract

In recent years, certain environmental stresses in the agriculture system have gained attention due to their deleterious influence on the crop production, crop protection and soil health. Crop productivity is severely affected by certain biotic and abiotic stresses, and its prevalence is predicted to be enhanced under environmental fluctuations and climate change worldwide. Increased incidence of abiotic stresses prompting adversely plant growth and productivity in crops, thus global food safety is being witnessed around the world. The abiotic stresses like drought, heavy metal and salts directly or indirectly influence the global environmental pollution and reduce the agricultural productivity. These abiotic stress factors include chemical pollutants, drought (water deficit), flooding, heavy metal toxicity, high and low temperature, nutritional imbalance, salinity, UV radiation, light, etc. Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) show a dynamic role in plant growth promotion, plant hormone production, improvement of plant nutritional status, crop protection, enhancement of soil fertility and the reduction of the stress-related damage without environmental contamination. Implementation of PGPR as inoculants is a measure to conflict stresses in agricultural fields, thereby enhancing global food production. In general, applying various abiotic stress-tolerant PGPR with multiple plant growth-promoting attributes could improve the abiotic stress tolerance of crop. Future agricultural production to feed all of the world’s population in these stresses affected agricultural environments, thus requiring the development of stress-tolerant crops. The capabilities of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) to promote plant growth and deliver protection from environmental stresses could be used as a very inexpensive, environmentally friendly and promising approach for mitigating the adverse effects of various environmental stresses on crops.