Endophytic Microbes: Potential Tools for Sustainable Crop Production
Abstract
The use of endophytic microorganisms as potential tools to mitigate adverse environmental factors is a rapidly developing technology for sustainable crop production. These microbial symbionts colonize the host plant's intracellular and intercellular spaces without causing morphological changes or infections, whilst developing secondary active metabolites that protect their host plants from phytopathogens. The production of beneficial substances by these microbes not only aids plant growth and protect them in the face of biotic and abiotic stress, it positively impacts the goal to tackle world hunger that is as a result of increased global population. These microorganisms have recently been used in a number of biotechnological fields which include the development of biofertilizers to boost crop production, while reducing chemical inputs into the environment, biocontrol of plant pests and diseases. In this review, the diversity, population and mechanism of interaction of these endophytes with crop plants as well as their potential applications in sustainable crop production were highlighted.
NAJ supports free online communication and exchange of knowledge as the most effective way of ensuring that the fruits of research and development practice are made widely available. It is therefore committed to open access, which, for authors, enables the widest possible dissemination of their findings and, for readers, increases their ability to discover pertinent information. The Journal adopts and uses the CC: BY license and is open access. This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the Journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Copyright for articles published in this Journal is retained by the Journal.
