Biofertilizers-mediated sustainable plant growth and production under adverse environmental conditions

Abstract

Globally, an unprecedented transformation in climatic conditions has substantially influenced the plants ability to adapt to changing climatic conditions. The alteration in the climatic environments has been caused owing to the combined outcome of increased population, urbanization, and globalization. The chemical-based fertilizers as well as pesticides were used to attain the maximum yield of crops because of limited land resources. However, continuous and over exploitation of these fertilizers, pesticides, and biocides cause detrimental impact on the plant health, productivity and soil texture (due to heavy metal contamination), including natural microbiota of the ecosystem (bacteria, fungi, cyanobacteria, protozoan in rhizosphere), and cause inequity in natural ecosystem. Consequently, there is an instant requirement towards the sustainable methodology for agriculture so as to not only overcome the issue of chemical fertilizers but also accomplish global food security for increasing population. This chapter is an attempt to summarize the various beneficial microbes as biofertilizers/biopesticide together with their role in improving the plant growth and yield under adverse environment. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.