scholarly journals Harnessing Beneficial Plant-Microbe Interactions for Enhanced Plant Adaptation to Abiotic Stresses

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Makaza ◽  
Casper Nyaradzai Kamutando

Boosting crop production is a vital venture for enhancement of humanity. However, it remains a dream, especially in developing countries. To attain food security at household level, productivity is constrained by a several biotic and abiotic stresses. Yield losses are usually influenced by abiotic stresses, particularly drought and heat stress, and poor soil fertility. Optimal crop production under these stress factors requires substantial inputs, including irrigation and heavy fertilization, strategies which majority of farmers in poor countries lack capacity to exploit. Therefore, much more sustainable and accessible alternatives need to be developed in order to address the problem of food insecurity. Recently, research has proven that plant adaptation to abiotic stresses can be promoted by beneficial microbial species, especially those that reside in the rhizosphere. For instance, mycorrhizal fungi have been found to expand the root system of plants to access more water and nutrients. In-depth understanding of the mechanisms underlying beneficial plant-microbe interactions is key in development of holistic programs for boosting yields under abiotic stress conditions. This chapter seeks to unravel the mechanisms underlying beneficial plant-microbe interactions and the importance of these interactions in stress-adaptation.

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Prabhu Inbaraj

Crop plants are continuously exposed to various abiotic stresses like drought, salinity, ultraviolet radiation, low and high temperatures, flooding, metal toxicities, nutrient deficiencies which act as limiting factors that hampers plant growth and low agricultural productivity. Climate change and intensive agricultural practices has further aggravated the impact of abiotic stresses leading to a substantial crop loss worldwide. Crop plants have to get acclimatized to various environmental abiotic stress factors. Though genetic engineering is applied to improve plants tolerance to abiotic stresses, these are long-term strategies, and many countries have not accepted them worldwide. Therefore, use of microbes can be an economical and ecofriendly tool to avoid the shortcomings of other strategies. The microbial community in close proximity to the plant roots is so diverse in nature and can play an important role in mitigating the abiotic stresses. Plant-associated microorganisms, such as endophytes, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), and plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), are well-documented for their role in promoting crop productivity and providing stress tolerance. This mini review highlights and discusses the current knowledge on the role of various microbes and it's tolerance mechanisms which helps the crop plants to mitigate and tolerate varied abiotic stresses.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Waleed Fouad Abobatta

Plant stimulants is an organic substance and micro-organisms, used by small quantities, Biostimulants categorize according to their nature, modes of action, and types of effects on crops, there are main groups of plant stimulants include Protein hydrolysates, Humate substances, Seaweed extracts, Biopolymers (Chitosan and other polymers), and Microbial biostimulants like mycorrhizal, non-mycorrhizal fungi, Rhizobium, and Trichoderma. Horticulture crop production facing several challenges particularly abiotic stresses and malnutrition resulting in yield loss and affects negatively fruit quality. The main effects of plant stimulants due to its working as the auxin-like effect, enhancing Nitrogen uptake, and stimulate plant growth. There is various stimulation effects on horticulture crops including promote plant growth, increase plant tolerance for biotic and abiotic stresses. Applying plant stimulants to plants or the rhizosphere stimulating plant metabolic processes, increase the efficiency of the nutrients, and increase plant tolerance to abiotic stress, consequently, improving plant growth increases yield, and enhancing fruit quality.


Plants ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 1055
Author(s):  
Krishan K. Verma ◽  
Xiu-Peng Song ◽  
Dong-Mei Li ◽  
Munna Singh ◽  
Vishnu D. Rajput ◽  
...  

Abiotic stresses are the major constraints in agricultural crop production across the globe. The use of some plant–microbe interactions are established as an environment friendly way of enhancing crop productivity, and improving plant development and tolerance to abiotic stresses by direct or indirect mechanisms. Silicon (Si) can also stimulate plant growth and mitigate environmental stresses, and it is not detrimental to plants and is devoid of environmental contamination even if applied in excess quantity. In the present review, we elaborate the interactive application of Si and plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPRs) as an ecologically sound practice to increase the plant growth rate in unfavorable situations, in the presence of abiotic stresses. Experiments investigating the combined use of Si and PGPRs on plants to cope with abiotic stresses can be helpful in the future for agricultural sustainability.


Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 2194
Author(s):  
Chu Lei ◽  
Muthukumar Bagavathiannan ◽  
Huiyong Wang ◽  
Shaun M. Sharpe ◽  
Wenting Meng ◽  
...  

Abiotic stresses such as drought, extreme temperature, and salinity can negatively impact seed germination and plant growth and have become major limitations to crop production. Most crops are vulnerable to abiotic stress factors during their early growth phase, especially during seed germination and seedling emergence. Rapid crop seed germination and seedling establishment is known to provide competitive advantages over weeds and improve yields. Seed osmopriming is defined as a pre-sowing treatment in which seeds are soaked in osmotic solutions to undergo the first stage of germination, but radicle protrusion has not occurred. The process of osmopriming involves prior exposure of seeds in low-water-potential solutions. Osmopriming can generate a series of pre-germination metabolic activities, increase the antioxidant system activities, and prepare the seed for radicle protrusion. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is a popular osmopriming agent that can alleviate the negative impacts of abiotic stresses. This review summarizes research findings on crop responses to seed priming with PEG under abiotic stresses. The challenges, limitations, and opportunities of using PEG for crop seed priming are discussed with the goal of providing insights into future research towards effective application of seed priming in crop production.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 456-475
Author(s):  
Efat Zohra ◽  
Muhammad Ikram ◽  
Ahmad A. Omar ◽  
Mujahid Hussain ◽  
Seema Hassan Satti ◽  
...  

Abstract In the present era, due to the increasing incidence of environmental stresses worldwide, the developmental growth and production of agriculture crops may be restrained. Selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) have precedence over other nanoparticles because of the significant role of selenium in activating the defense system of plants. In addition to beneficial microorganisms, the use of biogenic SeNPs is known as an environmentally friendly and ecologically biocompatible approach to enhance crop production by alleviating biotic and abiotic stresses. This review provides the latest development in the green synthesis of SeNPs by using the results of plant secondary metabolites in the biogenesis of nanoparticles of different shapes and sizes with unique morphologies. Unfortunately, green synthesized SeNPs failed to achieve significant attention in the agriculture sector. However, research studies were performed to explore the application potential of plant-based SeNPs in alleviating drought, salinity, heavy metal, heat stresses, and bacterial and fungal diseases in plants. This review also explains the mechanistic actions that the biogenic SeNPs acquire to alleviate biotic and abiotic stresses in plants. In this review article, the future research that needs to use plant-mediated SeNPs under the conditions of abiotic and biotic stresses are also highlighted.


Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 626
Author(s):  
Tinashe Zenda ◽  
Songtao Liu ◽  
Anyi Dong ◽  
Huijun Duan

Sulphur plays crucial roles in plant growth and development, with its functions ranging from being a structural constituent of macro-biomolecules to modulating several physiological processes and tolerance to abiotic stresses. In spite of these numerous sulphur roles being well acknowledged, agriculture has paid scant regard for sulphur nutrition, until only recently. Serious problems related to soil sulphur deficiencies have emerged and the intensification of food, fiber, and animal production is escalating to feed the ever-increasing human population. In the wake of huge demand for high quality cereal and vegetable diets, sulphur can play a key role in augmenting the production, productivity, and quality of crops. Additionally, in light of the emerging problems of soil fertility exhaustion and climate change-exacerbated environmental stresses, sulphur assumes special importance in crop production, particularly under intensively cropped areas. Here, citing several relevant examples, we highlight, in addition to its plant biological and metabolism functions, how sulphur can significantly enhance crop productivity and quality, as well as acclimation to abiotic stresses. By this appraisal, we also aim to stimulate readers interests in crop sulphur research by providing priorities for future pursuance, including bettering our understanding of the molecular processes and dynamics of sulphur availability and utilization in plants, dissecting the role of soil rhizospherical microbes in plant sulphur transformations, enhancing plant phenotyping and diagnosis for nutrient deficiencies, and matching site-specific crop sulphur demands with fertilizer amendments in order to reduce nutrient use inefficiencies in both crop and livestock production systems. This will facilitate the proper utilization of sulphur in crop production and eventually enhance sustainable and environmentally friend food production.


Author(s):  
Shuqin Jin ◽  
Bin Zhang ◽  
Bi Wu ◽  
Dongmei Han ◽  
Yu Hu ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 583-607
Author(s):  
Devanshi Khokhani ◽  
Cristobal Carrera Carriel ◽  
Shivangi Vayla ◽  
Thomas B. Irving ◽  
Christina Stonoha-Arther ◽  
...  

Chitin is a structural polymer in many eukaryotes. Many organisms can degrade chitin to defend against chitinous pathogens or use chitin oligomers as food. Beneficial microorganisms like nitrogen-fixing symbiotic rhizobia and mycorrhizal fungi produce chitin-based signal molecules called lipo-chitooligosaccharides (LCOs) and short chitin oligomers to initiate a symbiotic relationship with their compatible hosts and exchange nutrients. A recent study revealed that a broad range of fungi produce LCOs and chitooligosaccharides (COs), suggesting that these signaling molecules are not limited to beneficial microbes. The fungal LCOs also affect fungal growth and development, indicating that the roles of LCOs beyond symbiosis and LCO production may predate mycorrhizal symbiosis. This review describes the diverse structures of chitin; their perception by eukaryotes and prokaryotes; and their roles in symbiotic interactions, defense, and microbe-microbe interactions. We also discuss potential strategies of fungi to synthesize LCOs and their roles in fungi with different lifestyles.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hassan Etesami ◽  
Byoung Ryong Jeong ◽  
Bernard R. Glick

Phosphorus (P) availability is usually low in soils around the globe. Most soils have a deficiency of available P; if they are not fertilized, they will not be able to satisfy the P requirement of plants. P fertilization is generally recommended to manage soil P deficiency; however, the low efficacy of P fertilizers in acidic and in calcareous soils restricts P availability. Moreover, the overuse of P fertilizers is a cause of significant environmental concerns. However, the use of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), phosphate–solubilizing bacteria (PSB), and the addition of silicon (Si) are effective and economical ways to improve the availability and efficacy of P. In this review the contributions of Si, PSB, and AMF in improving the P availability is discussed. Based on what is known about them, the combined strategy of using Si along with AMF and PSB may be highly useful in improving the P availability and as a result, its uptake by plants compared to using either of them alone. A better understanding how the two microorganism groups and Si interact is crucial to preserving soil fertility and improving the economic and environmental sustainability of crop production in P deficient soils. This review summarizes and discusses the current knowledge concerning the interactions among AMF, PSB, and Si in enhancing P availability and its uptake by plants in sustainable agriculture.


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