Book Review: Microbial Inoculants in Sustainable Agricultural Productivity- Vol. II: Functional Application

Ecologically sustainable agricultural practices are essential to ensure food security, and efficient agriculturally beneficial microbes (microbial inoculants) are playing potential role in sustainable crop production due to their immense plant growth promoting attributes, better adaptability to survival under stresses, and other uses that result in attenuating the pesticides/fertilizers use in agriculture. However, the unpredictable biogenic and abiogenic soil factors that determine the nature and magnitude of the microbial inoculants responses and survival after their delivery in the field conditions remain unresolved. Soil microbes via several processes play indispensible roles in the supply of valuable nutrients to crop plants (Bashan et al., 2014). The presence of beneficial microbial communities in the rhizosphere minimizes the susceptibility to crop diseases (Singh, 2015). Because of ability to produce plant growth promoting and other molecules from secondary metabolism, beneficial microbes are widely used as commercial bio-inoculants (Singh et al., 2016a). However, a great diversity of valuable microbial inoculants continues to be revealed, and little is known about to the potential applications of new efficient microbial formulations that have been described. The book Microbial Inoculants in Sustainable Agricultural Productivity Vol. II Functional Applications essentially addresses the field usage of microbial agents (biofertilizers, biostimulants, biopesticides) for boosting agriculture sustainability. In this volume, a total of 19 chapters have been distributed over 308 pages. It contains the relevant topics contributed by the well-known researchers from different universities and institutes. Entire chapters in different subject areas contributed by the leading authors can be grouped into four parts. The first part (chapter 1– 11) highlights the use of bio-inoculants in management of crop plant stresses. This section provide satisfactory information about diverse group of microbes (rhizobia, cyanobacteria, actinomycetes, mycorrhiza, endophytes, etc.) that have been developed as microbial inoculants with beneficial functions at different levels and many chapters have touched on commercial production for applications in field conditions for farmers' benefits. Recently, plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPRs) and cyanobacteria have gained attention for their indispensible role in restoration ecology and sustainable agriculture (Singh and Strong, 2016; Singh et al., 2016b). Therefore, selection of such efficient microbial strains with well-defined PGP mechanisms can be exploited in development of bio-fertilizer/bio-pesticide inoculants for achieving consistent and economical results under field conditions. Furthermore, these microbial inoculants with tested results can be considered as integrated nutrient management system to sustain agricultural productivity with no adverse environmental impact. Though, these bio-agents play a significant role in soil …