Emerging bio-inoculants: An eco-smart strategy for mitigating biotic and abiotic stresses under changing climatic conditions

Title : Emerging bio-inoculants: An eco-smart strategy for mitigating biotic and abiotic stresses under changing climatic conditions

Abstract:

Soil salinization represents a rapidly intensifying global challenge, threatening food security by impairing nearly 20% and 33% of cultivated and irrigated agricultural lands and causing an estimated annual loss of USD 27.3 billion in crop production. Conventional remediation strategies including deployment of salt-tolerant varieties, soil scrapping, flushing, leaching, and chemical amendments often provide limited or inconsistent benefits, necessitating more sustainable and biologically resilient solutions. Beneficial plant-associated microbes, particularly salt-tolerant plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), have emerged as eco-smart tools capable of enhancing crop performance under saline conditions while maintaining soil health. Advances in genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics have significantly broadened our understanding of microbial diversity, metabolic capabilities, and functional interactions within the rhizosphere. 

Numerous salt-tolerant microbial genera isolated from cereals, legumes, vegetables, and oilseed crops demonstrate remarkable abilities to enhance nutrient acquisition, regulate phytohormones, and mitigate biotic and abiotic stresses, including salinity. Recent research highlights that synergistic microbial consortia offer superior benefits compared to individual strains, reinforcing the importance of community-based interactions. Emerging strategies such as rhizosphere microbiome engineering, interactome network analysis, and protein-protein interaction mapping (e.g., split-ubiquitin systems) are enabling precise manipulation of plant-microbe communication for tailored stress resilience. Realizing the full potential of these innovations will require coordinated interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers, industries, and farming communities. This abstract emphasizes the transformative role of salt-tolerant microbial communities and microbiome engineering in strengthening plant salt tolerance and advancing sustainable agricultural productivity under increasingly saline and climate-stressed environments.

Keywords: Soil salinity; Rhizosphere microbiome; Multi-omics approaches; sustainable agriculture; plant-microbe interactions.

Biography:

Dr. Kailash Chand Kumawat received his B.Sc. (Hons.) Agriculture from Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir (India). He obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Microbiology from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India, in 2014 and 2018 respectively. He joined as an Assistant Professor (Microbiology) in the Department of Industrial Microbiology, Jacob Institute of Bio-technology and Bioengineering (JIBB), Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences, UP, India. He has been engaged in research on the plant-microbial interaction to mitigate abiotic and biotic stress under sustainable agriculture. A research field includes the plant microbial interaction, legume symbiosis, endophytic microbiome and their interaction with plant to mitigate abiotic and biotic stresses under sustainable agriculture. At present, he has published 26 research papers in peer reviewed international and national journals, 17 book chapters in Springer and Elsevier publishers, 3 full paper in the international and national conferences, 18 popular articles in reputed magazines and 12 abstract in National and International conferences related to field of agriculture microbiology, soil microbiology and environmental sciences, of which Papers are Published in Microbiological Research (Q1, IF = 5.415), World Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology (Q1, IF = 4.253), Pedosphere (Q1, IF = 5.514 ), Environment Science and Pollution Research (Q1, IF = 5.190) Frontiers in Microbiology (Q1, IF = 6.064), Frontiers in Plant Science (Q1, IF = 6.627 ) and Science of the Total Environment (Q1, IF = 10.753). Dr. Kumawat is an active reviewer for many reputed international journals in the field of applied microbiology, sustainable agriculture and environment management under changing climatic conditions. He is actively engaged in different professional societies like Life Member of the Association of Microbiologists of India, and Life Member of Asian PGPR Society of Sustainable Agriculture USA. He has over 1475 citations, h-index 18, I-10 24.