Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria: Fundamentals and Applications

Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) have gained worldwide importance and acceptance for agricultural benefits. This is due to the emerging demand for dependence diminishing of synthetic chemical products, to the growing M. do Vale Barreto Figueiredo (*) National Research and Technological Development, Brazil Agronomical Institute of Pernambuco, IPA/CARHP, 1371, Gen. San Martin Avenue, Recife, PE 50761-000, Brazil e‐mail: [email protected] L. Seldin National Research and Technological Development, Brazil Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil F.F. de Araujo National Research and Technological Development, Brazil University of West Paulista, UNOESTE, São Paulo, SP, Brazil R. de Lima Ramos Mariano National Research and Technological Development, Brazil Federal Rural University of Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brazil D.K. Maheshwari (ed.), Plant Growth and Health Promoting Bacteria, Microbiology Monographs 18, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-13612-2_2, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010 21 necessity of sustainable agriculture within a holistic vision of development and to focalize environmental protection. Scientific researches involve multidisciplinary approaches to understand adaptation of PGPR, effects on plant physiology and growth, induced systemic resistance, biocontrol of plant pathogens, biofertilization, and potential green alternative for plant productivity, viability of coinoculating, plant microorganism interactions, and mechanisms of root colonization. By virtue of their rapid rhizosphere colonization and stimulation of plant growth, there is currently considerable interest in exploiting these rhizosphere bacteria to improve crop production. The main groups of PGPR can be found along with the phyla Cyanobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, and Proteobacteria. Therefore, the examples coming up next are related to these microorganisms. Although taxonomic affiliation of validated genera containing PGPR strains described in literature is vast, phenotypic and genotypic approaches are now available to characterize these different rhizobacteria. The progress to date in using PGPR in a variety of applications is summarized and discussed here.