About This Special Issue
Understanding the interactions between microorganisms and plants is the new challenge for agriculture. The knowledge of those interactions can replace current agricultural practices for environmental friendly technologies, reducing impacts and maintaining productivity. The plant microbiome, through different metabolic and molecular mechanisms, is able to protect and induce plant growth. It is necessary full knowledge for use as sustainable technology. Several symbiont microorganisms, such as rhizobia, mycorrhizae, and associative or free-living microorganisms, such as rhizobacteria of the genera Pseudomonas, Azospirillum, Bacillus, Paraburkholderia have been described as plant promoters and protectors. There are several mechanisms, such as N biological fixation, phosphate solubilization, phytohormones production, antibiotic and extracellular enzymes production. Most of these mechanisms are observed in vitro or under controlled conditions. It is necessary to evaluate microrganisms performance under field conditions to assess their effective potential. The use of microorganisms that have more than one mechanism of action on plants is interesting because it can act on nutrition and plant protection, reducing or replacing inputs, as it is already done at soybean production. However, prospecting those microorganisms should also consider their ability to survive and compete for plant rhizosphere sites. Another approach is the characterization and molecular identification of these individuals to guarantee that only no or low biological risk microorganisms be used as bioproducts.
Aims and Scope:
- PGPR
- Mycorhizae
- Endophytic microorganisms
- Biological control
- Plant growth
- Microbial ecology