Alleviating the adverse effects of plant pathogens, drought and salinity stress factors using plant growth promoting bacteria

Abstract

Climate change is one of the most important threats to agricultural production, therefore, more attention must be paid to study the environmental stresses that affect plant production. Pathogen stress is one of the most important stresses that negatively affect growth and yield, also drought and salinity are very dangerous abiotic factors. Pathogens, drought and salinity stresses led to decrease morphological characters and yield production of plant. However, the application of plant growth promoting bacteria (PGPB) positively affect morphological, physiological, and yield characters such as number of leaves, stem height, chlorophyll concentration, relative water content, antioxidant enzymes and crop yield. PGPB can play a pivotal role in facilitating nutrient uptake, bioactive compounds and scavenging reactive oxygen species (ROS) to control various pathogens and increase plant tolerance to drought and salinity stresses. Finally, the latest studies of these beneficial bacteria have been presented comprehensively under stress conditions to highlight the recent trends with the aim to maximize the crop production.