PGPR: Renewable Tool for Sustainable Agriculture

Abstract

In developing countries like India agriculture contributes major share of national income. A huge amount of chemical fertilizers require to enhance crop yield. The indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides affect not only the soil sustainability but also imparted the negative impact on environment and human health, besides increasing the input cost for crop production especially for the marginal farmers. Now a day, environment friendly plant growth promoting rhizobia (PGPR) has emerged as an alternative tool to minimise the application of chemical fertilizers. Many beneficial plant growth promoting rhizobacterial strain, can promote plant growth and yield are considered as PGPR. PGPR can promote plant growth by several mechanism including: (i) Synthesis of phytohormones or plant nutrients, (ii) Mobilizing of complex soil compounds and makes them available to plants, (iii) Provide stability under stress condition thereby counteracting the negative impacts of stress, (iv) defence against many plant pathogens and reduce plant diseases. In agriculture, microbes can be applied as biofertilizers. Worldwide several PGPR have been used as biofertilizers to increase plant growth promotion, yield of crop and enhance soil fertility hence PGPR contribute to more sustainable agriculture.