Microorganisms for Green Revolution: Volume 1: Microbes for Sustainable Crop Production

449 Pages·2017·9.1 MB·English

by  Deepak G. Panpatte

Microorganisms for Sustainability 6
Series Editor: Naveen Kumar Arora
Deepak G. Panpatte
Yogeshvari K. Jhala
Rajababu V. Vyas
Harsha N. Shelat Editors
Microorganisms
for Green
Revolution
Volume 1: Microbes for Sustainable
Crop Production
Microorganisms for Sustainability
Volume 6
Series editor
Naveen Kumar Arora, Environmental Microbiology, School for Environmental
Science, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14379
Deepak G. Panpatte • Yogeshvari K. Jhala
Rajababu V. Vyas • Harsha N. Shelat
Editors
Microorganisms for Green
Revolution
Volume 1: Microbes for Sustainable
Crop Production
Editors
Deepak G. Panpatte Yogeshvari K. Jhala
Department of Agricultural Microbiology, Department of Agricultural Microbiology,
B. A. College of Agriculture B. A. College of Agriculture
Anand Agricultural University Anand Agricultural University
Anand, Gujarat, India Anand, Gujarat, India
Rajababu V. Vyas Harsha N. Shelat
Department of Agricultural Microbiology, Department of Agricultural Microbiology,
B. A. College of Agriculture B. A. College of Agriculture
Anand Agricultural University Anand Agricultural University
Anand, Gujarat, India Anand, Gujarat, India
ISSN 2512-1901 ISSN 2512-1898 (electronic)
Microorganisms for Sustainability
ISBN 978-981-10-6240-7 ISBN 978-981-10-6241-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6241-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017958135
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Foreword

The book Microbes for Sustainable Crop Production (Volume I) is the need of the
current era to mitigate adverse effects of chemical farming. The world’s food
requirement demands high agricultural productivity, but the conventional farming
practices have several limitations. Shrinking farmland, rising input costs, and slow
adoptions of mechanization are further depleting farmers’ income. Soil quality is
the “key” factor in current and ancient sustainable agricultural approaches. To
improve and maintain soil health, microbial inoculants are strongly promoted the
world over as a part of current strategies. In the last few decades, the world per-
ceived steps toward maintaining diversity of microbes and their possible benefits in
sustainable agricultural productivity. The advent of powerful new technologies for
the production and application of microbial inoculants has accelerated the step of
viable agricultural development.
The book includes a collection of literature and reviews on diverse aspects of
sustainable agriculture through microbial inoculants. Attempts have been made to
summarize the developments achieved till date and future prospects. It would pro-
vide an overview of innovative ideas for one and all interested in doubling the farm-
ers’ income, including academicians, researchers, students, and entrepreneurs
desiring organic and sustainable agriculture using plant-microbe positive interac-
tion phenomenon for achieving the second green revolution and to eliminate hunger
from the earth. Microbial approaches can reduce stress on the environment,
v
vi Foreword
agricultural ecosystem, and soil biodiversity in a sustainable manner, ultimately
facilitating transformation of soil and agriculture.
Editors comprising a team of agricultural microbiologists of Anand Agricultural
University have compiled the knowledge and experiences of renowned scientists
across the globe in this book. I assure this book will be very useful for readers in the
field of agricultural microbiology for bridging knowledge gap.

Anand Agricultural University N.C. Patel,
Anand, Gujarat, India
Preface
Microorganisms are the first to arrive and last to leave the earth and represent the
driving force of the universe due to their prime importance in functioning of all the
biogeochemical cycle which creates the atmosphere of earth. In the last few decades,
we have witnessed the increased production in the agriculture sector as a result of
the green revolution. The concept of green revolution was undoubtedly proved to be
a boon for our agriculture sector. But as we know that every coin has two sides, the
introduction of high-yielding crops during the green revolution has increased our
dependence on chemical-based agro-inputs as high-yielding crops are also highest-
eating crops. To satisfy the crop’s hunger and to maintain its health, farmers are
incorporating tremendous amount of chemicals in the agroecosystem unknowingly
and as a result of which our natural resources are getting spoiled and threatening the
survival of humans. Irresponsible and excessive use of chemical inputs may throw
devastating impacts on the water, air, and soil environments, as well as their cost
cannot make economic and profitable agricultural products. In ancient time, farm-
ing was totally dependent on natural inputs, and presently, the concept of organic
farming was revived due to the increased awareness of consumers for chemical-free
food. The undetachable component of the modern concept of organic farming is
microorganism. In many communities of the world, soil is being worshiped like a
mother as it is nurturing life. Similarly, since sowing, plants are interacting with soil
encompassing microorganisms which serves as a motherhood to crops by providing
them nutrition and protection. The use of bio-inputs such as biofertilizers, biopesti-
cides, and biodegraders comprising of agriculturally beneficial microorganisms
keeps our biogeochemical cycles alive by acting as miniature factories inside the
soil and provides continuous supply of nutrients as well as plant protection metabo-
lites when required. There exist various groups of microbes including bacteria, cya-
nobacteria, actinomycetes, fungus, and endophytes. The inoculants based on either
single or multiple beneficial strains of beneficial microorganisms are commercially
produced and popularized among farming communities the world over. Moreover,
presently, we are experiencing many natural disasters like flood, drought, and high
or low temperature due to climate change which in turn has a negative impact on the
agroecosystem and reduces the sustainability of agriculture. Microbes are also hav-
ing the capacity to cope up with such stress conditions by virtue of their God gift
that it shares with crops to nourish them under stressed conditions.
vii
viii Preface
The book entitled Microbes for Sustainable Crop Production (Volume I)
addresses the two major fields of microbial inoculants, viz., biofertilizers and
biopesticides for agriculture, with the help of reputed national and international
scientists working in the field of agricultural microbiology. Each chapter will
emphasize on the mechanism of action and recent advances in agricultural microbi-
ology. The outlooks of the authors are methodical and firm based on their own
experiences during their carrier in the field of agricultural microbiology.
I hope this book will be extremely useful to the researchers in the field of agri-
cultural microbiology especially those who are working on the development of
microbial inoculants for sustainable agriculture as a source of valuable
information.
Anand, Gujarat, India Deepak G. Panpatte
Yogeshvari K. Jhala
Rajababu V. Vyas
Harsha N. Shelat
Contents
1 Wonders of Microbes in Agriculture for Productivity
and Sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Rajababu V. Vyas, Deepak G. Panpatte, Yogeshvari K. Jhala,
and Harsha N. Shelat
2 Microbial Biofertilizer: A Potential Tool for 
Sustainable Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Udaya Kumar Vandana, Ankita Chopra, Sanchita Bhattacharjee,
and P.B. Mazumder
3 Potentials of Microbial Inoculants in Soil Productivity:
An Outlook on African Legumes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Bukola Rhoda Aremu, Elizabeth Temitope Alori,
Raphael Funso Kutu, and Olubukola Oluranti Babalola
4 Endophytic Microorganisms: Promising Candidate
as Biofertilizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Manish Kumar, Raghvendra Saxena, and Rajesh Singh Tomar
5 Azotobacter: A Potential Biofertilizer and Bioinoculants
for Sustainable Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
G. Chennappa, M.K. Naik, Y.S. Amaresh, H. Nagaraja,
and M.Y. Sreenivasa
6 Rhizobacterial Phosphate Solubilizers in Sustainable
Agriculture: Concepts and Prospects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
B.L. Raghunandan
7 Potassium-Solubilizing Microbes: Diversity, Distribution,
and Role in Plant Growth Promotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Priyanka Verma, Ajar Nath Yadav, Kazy Sufia Khannam,
Anil Kumar Saxena, and Archna Suman
8 Bacterial Volatile Organic Compounds: A New Insight
for Sustainable Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
D.G. Panpatte, Y.M. Shukla, H.N. Shelat, R.V. Vyas,
and Y.K. Jhala
ix