Revisiting the plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria: lessons from the past and objectives for the future

• Published in: Archives of microbiology 2020-05, Vol.202 (4), p.665-676
• Main Authors: Aeron, Abhinav, Khare, Ekta, Jha, Chaitanya Kumar, Meena, Vijay Singh, Aziz, Shadia Mohammed Abdel, Islam, Mohammed Tofazzal, Kim, Kangmin, Meena, Sunita Kumari, Pattanayak, Arunava, Rajashekara, Hosahatti, Dubey, Ramesh Chandra, Maurya, Bihari Ram, Maheshwari, Dinesh Kumar, Saraf, Meenu, Choudhary, Mahipal, Verma, Rajhans, Meena, H. N., Subbanna, A. R. N. S., Parihar, Manoj, Shukla, Shruti, Muthusamy, Govarthanan, Bana, Ram Swaroop, Bajpai, Vivek K., Han, Young-Kyu, Rahman, Mahfuzur, Kumar, Dileep, Singh, Norang Pal, Meena, Rajesh Kumar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agriculture - trends; Agrochemicals; Alternative technology; Bacteria - metabolism; Bacterial Physiological Phenomena; Biochemistry; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biotechnology; Cell Biology; Ecological effects; Ecology; Environmental stress; Fertilizers; Host plants; Life Sciences; Microbial Ecology; Microbiology; Mini-Review; Nitrogen - metabolism; Nutrient availability; Nutrient dynamics; Nutrients; Pesticides; Plant Development; Plant growth; Plant protection; Plants - microbiology; Soil - chemistry; Soil Microbiology; Soil nutrients; Soils; Stress, Physiological; Stresses; Sustainability; Sustainable agriculture; Water use; Water use efficiency
• ISSN: 0302-8933; 1432-072X
• DOI: 10.1007/s00203-019-01779-w

Plant beneficial rhizobacteria (PBR) is a group of naturally occurring rhizospheric microbes that enhance nutrient availability and induce biotic and abiotic stress tolerance through a wide array of mechanisms to enhance agricultural sustainability. Application of PBR has the potential to reduce worldwide requirement of agricultural chemicals and improve agro-ecological sustainability. The PBR exert their beneficial effects in three major ways; (1) fix atmospheric nitrogen and synthesize specific compounds to promote plant growth, (2) solubilize essential mineral nutrients in soils for plant uptake, and (3) produce antimicrobial substances and induce systemic resistance in host plants to protect them from biotic and abiotic stresses. Application of PBR as suitable inoculants appears to be a viable alternative technology to synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Furthermore, PBR enhance nutrient and water use efficiency, influence dynamics of mineral recycling, and tolerance of plants to other environmental stresses by improving health of soils. This report provides comprehensive reviews and discusses beneficial effects of PBR on plant and soil health. Considering their multitude of functions to improve plant and soil health, we propose to call the plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPR) as PBR.