Microbial intervention in agriculture: An overview

With increase in population, rapid urbanization and industrialization, land area under agricultural production is decreasing day by day. In order to feed the huge population, more production is required from lesser area, which triggers continuous applications of higher doses of inorganic fertilizers in an injudicious manner posing serious harm on soil health, further rendering large fraction of land unfit for cultivation every year due to nutrient imbalance. Combustion of fossil fuels during production of inorganics, leaching, loss of excess inorganic nitrate and phosphorus from cropped lands, excessive uplifting of ground water for irrigation purpose also lead to degradation of the quality of environment and natural resources through global warming, eutrophication, heavy metal contamination in ground water, etc. Under such circumstances, some improvised technologies are to be adopted to enhance productivity in a sustainable manner. A great deal of effort focusing on the soil biological system and the agro-ecosystem as a whole is needed to enable better understanding of the complex processes and interactions governing the stability of agricultural lands. The technological advances made in recent times in exploring biodiversity have revealed that microbial diversity has immense potential that can be explored through careful selection of microbes and their successful utilization in solving major agricultural and environmental issues. Key words: Agriculture, biological nitrogen fixation (BNF), plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), phosphate solubilizing microorganisms, vesicular arbascularmicorrhizae (VAM), arsenic detoxification.