Microbes For Sustainable Agriculture Research Articles

The Microbial Connection to Sustainable Agriculture.

Microorganisms are an important element in modeling sustainable agriculture. Their role in soil fertility and health is crucial in maintaining plants' growth, development, and yield. Further, microorganisms impact agriculture negatively through disease and emerging diseases. Deciphering the extensive functionality and structural diversity within the plant-soil microbiome is necessary to effectively deploy these organisms in sustainable agriculture. Although both the plant and soil microbiome have been studied over the decades, the efficiency of translating the laboratory and greenhouse findings to the field is largely dependent on the ability of the inoculants or beneficial microorganisms to colonize the soil and maintain stability in the ecosystem. Further, the plant and its environment are two variables that influence the plant and soil microbiome's diversity and structure. Thus, in recent years, researchers have looked into microbiome engineering that would enable them to modify the microbial communities in order to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the inoculants. The engineering of environments is believed to support resistance to biotic and abiotic stressors, plant fitness, and productivity. Population characterization is crucial in microbiome manipulation, as well as in the identification of potential biofertilizers and biocontrol agents. Next-generation sequencing approaches that identify both culturable and non-culturable microbes associated with the soil and plant microbiome have expanded our knowledge in this area. Additionally, genome editing and multidisciplinary omics methods have provided scientists with a framework to engineer dependable and sustainable microbial communities that support high yield, disease resistance, nutrient cycling, and management of stressors. In this review, we present an overview of the role of beneficial microbes in sustainable agriculture, microbiome engineering, translation of this technology to the field, and the main approaches used by laboratories worldwide to study the plant-soil microbiome. These initiatives are important to the advancement of green technologies in agriculture.

The soil-borne ultimatum, microbial biotechnology and sustainable agriculture.

The soil-borne ultimatum, microbial biotechnology and sustainable agriculture.

More than words: the chemistry behind the interactions in the plant holobiont.

Plants and microbes have evolved sophisticated ways to communicate and coexist. The simplest interactions that occur in plant-associated habitats, i.e., those involved in disease detection, depend on the production of microbial pathogenic and virulence factors and the host's evolved immunological response. In contrast, microbes can also be beneficial for their host plants in a number of ways, including fighting pathogens and promoting plant growth. In order to clarify the mechanisms directly involved in these various plant-microbe interactions, we must still deepen our understanding of how these interkingdom communication systems, which are constantly modulated by resident microbial activity, are established and, most importantly, how their effects can span physically separated plant compartments. Efforts in this direction have revealed a complex and interconnected network of molecules and associated metabolic pathways that modulate plant-microbe and microbe-microbe communication pathways to regulate diverse ecological responses. Once sufficiently understood, these pathways will be biotechnologically exploitable, for example, in the use of beneficial microbes in sustainable agriculture. The aim of this review is to present the latest findings on the dazzlingly diverse arsenal of molecules that efficiently mediate specific microbe-microbe and microbe-plant communication pathways during plant development and on different plant organs.

High-Throughput Customization of Plant Microbiomes for Sustainable Agriculture.

Soil microorganisms can form a stable dynamic system with plant root systems. The composition of the soil microorganism community is related to the growth and stress resistance of plants; in turn, soil microorganisms are also regulated by plant genotypes and root exudates. Therefore, research on how to identify microorganisms that are beneficial or harmful to plants, study the interaction between microorganisms and plants, and form stable microbial communities for better plant growth plays an important role in sustainable agriculture. It is of great significance to identify and analyze rhizosphere microorganisms and plant endophytes through high-throughput methods, especially to analyze which microorganisms are beneficial to plants, which are harmful to plants, and which are opportunistic pathogens. This review provides a theoretical basis and outlook for the utilization of beneficial microbes in sustainable agriculture.

Insights on Engineered Microbes in Sustainable Agriculture: Biotechnological Developments and Future Prospects.

Background Enhanced agricultural production is essential for increasing demand of the growing world population. At the same time, to combat the adverse effects caused by conventional agriculture practices to the environment along with the impact on human health and food security, a sustainable and healthy agricultural production needs to be practiced using beneficial microorganisms for enhanced yield. It is quite challenging because these microorganisms have rich biosynthetic repositories to produce biomolecules of interest; however, the intensive research in allied sectors and emerging genetic tools for improved microbial consortia are accepting new approaches that are helpful to farmers and agriculturists to meet the ever-increasing demand of sustainable food production. An important advancement is improved strain development via genetically engineered microbial systems (GEMS) as well as genetically modified microorganisms (GMOs) possessing known and upgraded functional characteristics to promote sustainable agriculture and food security. With the development of novel technologies such as DNA automated synthesis, sequencing and influential computational tools, molecular biology has entered the systems biology and synthetic biology era. More recently, CRISPR/Cas has been engineered to be an important tool in genetic engineering for various applications in the agri sector. The research in sustainable agriculture is progressing tremendously through GMOs/GEMS for their potential use in biofertilizers and as biopesticides.Conclusion In this review, we discuss the beneficial effects of engineered microorganisms through integrated sustainable agriculture production practices to improve the soil microbial health in order to increase crop productivity.

Root-associated microbes in sustainable agriculture: models, metabolites and mechanisms.

Since the discovery of penicillin in 1928 and throughout the 'age of antibiotics' from the 1940s until the 1980s, the detection of novel antibiotics was restricted by lack of knowledge about the distribution and ecology of antibiotic producers in nature. The discovery that a phenazine compound produced by Pseudomonas bacteria could suppress soilborne plant pathogens, and its recovery from rhizosphere soil in 1990, provided the first incontrovertible evidence that natural metabolites could control plant pathogens in the environment and opened a new era in biological control by root-associated rhizobacteria. More recently, the advent of genomics, the availability of highly sensitive bioanalytical instrumentation, and the discovery of protective endophytes have accelerated progress toward overcoming many of the impediments that until now have limited the exploitation of beneficial plant-associated microbes to enhance agricultural sustainability. Here, we present key developments that have established the importance of these microbes in the control of pathogens, discuss concepts resulting from the exploration of classical model systems, and highlight advances emerging from ongoing investigations. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry.

Paenibacillus panacisoli enhances growth of Lactobacillus spp. by producing xylooligosaccharides in corn stover ensilages

The knowledge about the association of lignocellulosic biomass-degrading microbes with lactic acid bacteria (LAB) in ensilages is still limited. Paenibacillus strains are important microbes in sustainable agriculture. Here, P. panacisoli SDMCC050309 was isolated from ensiled corn stover and used as an example to investigate the effects on LAB. This strain produced at least 7 xylanases, and two of them were purified and characterized. Temperature and pH optima were determined to be 55 °C and 8.0 for Xyn10 and 40 °C and 7.0 for Xyn11, respectively. They could degraded larch wood xylan and alkali-pretreated corn stover into xylooligosaccharides (XOS). Using the produced XOS to culture Lactobacillus brevis SDMCC050297 and L. parafarraginis SDMCC050300, both of them grew well with high level of acetic acid production. The same phenomenon was observed when co-culturing those two Lactobacillus strains with P. panacisoli SDMCC050309. Therefore, P. panacisoli enhances growth of LAB by producing XOS in corn stover ensilages.

Consequence of phosphate solubilising microbes in sustainable agriculture as efficient microbial consortium: A review

Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for plant growth and yield. Currently, phosphorus fixation in soil is a major problem throughout the world as available phosphorus in soil is highly reactive with cationic elements to form complex compounds. Rock phosphate is one of the cheapest fertiliser and most abundant; however, its direct application in soils is not much effective for the availability of phosphorus to plant growth due to its low reactivity. Further, phosphorus is present as a fixed or complex form in soils, which is unavailable for plants. Phosphate solubilising microbes (PSMs) have potential to solubilise the complex form of phosphate in the available form of phosphorus to plants. PSMs have different mechanisms for solubilisation of phosphate by producing various acids and enzymes. Other mechanisms of phosphate solubilisation and mineralisation follow chelation and immobilised cell technology. All such phosphate solubilisation mechanisms by PSMs have been discussed in this article. The current need to develop genetically modified PSM as efficient PSMs strains for sustainable agricultural production is also discussed in the present review. The PSMs is known as effective biofertiliser for enhancing the plant growth, yield and nutrient content in crops as well as improve the soil fertility under sustainable agriculture. The main aim of this review was to elaborate the phosphate solubilising activities and their consequences for sustainable agriculture.

Role of Beneficial Soil Microbes in Sustainable Agriculture and Environmental Management

Rapidly increasing human population is expected to make food security a big issue in the future. Agriculture is facing severe challenges of land degradation, lesser productivity and susceptibility towards abiotic and biotic stresses. Sustainability in the agricultural sector is proving a formidable task because the current trend involves excessive use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Besides these, anthropogenic activities such as urbanisation and industrialisation are generating more waste, posing a severe threat to the ecosystems. Various approaches were tried to eradicate waste and restore ecosystems, but the success was limited. Beneficial soil microbes (BSMs) are identified as suitable candidates that may help in the sustainable management of the environment. These microorganisms possess several mechanisms that can be exploited at the commercial level in developing biotechnology for solving the key environmental issues. Beneficial microbe-based products currently used in agroecosystems have shown remarkable success. Their proper use in agroecosystems is changing the scenario of present-day agriculture. In the future, utilisation of such microbes in the clean-up of pollutants, waste eradication and combating climate change can provide substantial aid in on-going-greener campaign towards environmental sustainability. In this review, we have summarised the role of BSMs particularly the plant-growthpromoting bacteria and fungi in sustainable agriculture and also addressed their role in the management of environmental problems.

Book Review: Principles of Plant-Microbe Interactions: Microbes for Sustainable Agriculture

Book Review: Principles of Plant-Microbe Interactions: Microbes for Sustainable Agriculture

Biotechnological potential of siderophore producing microbes for sustainable agriculture

Biotechnological potential of siderophore producing microbes for sustainable agriculture