Elsevier

Scientia Horticulturae

Volume 193, 22 September 2015, Pages 231-239
Scientia Horticulturae

Review
Role of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria in sustainable production of vegetables: Current perspective

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scienta.2015.07.020Get rights and content

Highlights

  • PGPR play important roles in safe and sustainable production of horticultural crops.

  • PGPR inoculation stimulates germinating attributes of vegetable crops.

  • PGPR improve growth, appearance, texture and nutritive quality of vegetables.

  • Vegetables play important roles in human health.

Abstract

In order to optimize the crop production and hence, to achieve food security, synthetic fertilizers have largely been used in high input agronomic practices to offset major and sometimes minor nutrient deficiencies of soils with concomitant intensification in food production. When used repeatedly in horticultural practices, such environmentally un-friendly fertilizers have deleteriously impacted soil fertility and consequently, the crop productivity. Taking these threats into account, scientists are desperate to find inexpensive, environmentally benign and easy to operate options to overcome fertilizer toxicity problems. In this regard, plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) have magnetize the agrarian communities due in part to their low cost, easy access and simple mode of application. Broadly, PGPR when used either alone or in consortia, have resulted in tremendous positive impact on horticultural production. Among horticultural crops, the interest in quality of vegetables in recent times among consumers has increased worldwide. The results of studies conducted so far worldwide on the impact of PGPR carrying numerous multi-functional plant growth promoting activities on horticultural crops especially vegetables grown distinctively in different production systems is discussed and considered. The review will conclude by identifying several PGPR for future researches aiming to improve the health and quality of vegetables grown in different production systems. Also, the findings presented here are likely to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers in horticultural practices and to protect human health (via food chain) from the ill effect of fertilizers used in different agronomic environment.

Section snippets

Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR)—definition, origin, introduction

Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) were first defined by Kloepper and Schroth (1978) to describe soil bacteria that colonize the roots of plants following inoculation onto seed and that enhance plant growth. The PGPR is one of the most important and agronomically useful soil microbiota that involves free living growth promoting rhizobacteria (Lutenberg and Kamilova, 2009, Bhattacharya and Jha, 2012) and widely studied symbiotic nodule bacteria, for example, rhizobia (Peix et al., 2015

PGPR inoculant development and production

The injudicious use and heavy dependence on synthetic fertilizers for future agricultural needs are likely to result in further loss in soil fertility, variable impact on composition and functions of soil microbiota. Also, excessive use of fertilizers have shown negative impact on crop productivity, soil and water contamination, crop susceptibility to diseases and ultimately loss in economy (Savci, 2012, Cristina et al., 2013). To address such serious problems, the advent of biofertilzer

A general perspective

A diverse array of bacteria including species of Azospirillum (Fatemeh et al., 2014), Pseudomonas (Ahmad et al., 2013), Azotobacter (Gaytan et al., 2012), Bacillus (Ashwini and Srividya, 2014), Enterobacter (Collavino et al., 2010), Burkholederia (Minaxi et al., 2013), Serratia (Dastager et al., 2011), Pantoea (Mishra et al., 2011), Rhizobium (Hungria et al., 2013), Mesorhizobium (Verma et al., 2014) and many others have been found to enhance the biological and chemical characteristics of

Potato (Solanum tuberosum)

Potato is the most important vegetable in the world ranking fourth in production. Approximately, 40% of world’s land has however, low potato production because its roots have limited access to P in soil (Igual et al., 2001). In contrast, potato requires considerably higher dose of P since this is a high biomass yielding crop. Phosphate solubilizing bacteria like, Pseudomonas putida, Microbacterium laevaniformans and Pantoea agglomerans, applied either alone or as mixture had stimulatory effect

Conclusion and future prospects

Indeed, chemical fertilizer is essentially required to overcome nutrient deficits and to facilitate growth and yields of horticultural crops but it is generally unavailable to poor farmers due to its higher costs. Moreover, the soil pollution and loss of soil fertility due to excessive application of chemical fertilizers are the other major concerns in vegetables production. To overcome such acute problems, PGPR including PSM has been tried and tested and have been found effective in reducing

Acknowledgment

We are extremely thankful to the Chairman of our Department for providing computer facilities and space for preparing this review article.

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