Microbes may be the key to a sustainable agriculture
Microbes are found everywhere on Earth. Microbes can live in many natural places, such as high or low temperatures, high or low pH, or extremely salty environments. Without the activities of these tiny microbes, the existence and survival of other living things in other ecosystems would not be possible. To date, only 1% of the microbial diversity found on Earth has been cultivated. However, 99% of microbes living in different ecosystems are waiting to be discovered and investigated.
Cultural approaches are very important because of their invaluable contribution and reliability. However, given a large number of uncultured microbes, the information provided by metagenomic studies, which refers to the direct cloning of community DNA, is invaluable. Metagenomic approaches applied in a variety of natural habitats have led to an understanding of the diversity of uncultured microbes and to the discovery and characterization of new genes and gene products.
Agricultural activities were accelerated in order to feed the increasing human population. The application of fossil fuel-based inputs such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and others in agriculture has resulted in increased production. However, increased agricultural production and yield have had negative effects on the environment and ecosystem. This has led to growing awareness and concern about the need for sustainable agriculture. The negative effects of chemical fertilizers and pesticides on the environment have encouraged scientists to develop alternative strategies for more sustainable agriculture.
Scientists began to work on many strategies for sustainable agriculture, including microbes. Global research efforts have enabled us to gain tremendous insights into microbes using powerful tools from microbial genetics, molecular biology, and biotechnology. For example, using soil microbes as bio-inoculants to stimulate crop production is one of the proposed strategies. Some rhizospheric microbes are known to synthesize plant growth-promoting substances, siderophores, and antibiotics and help increase phosphorus availability.
Large quantities of more than 100 industrial products such as ethanol, butanol, organic acids, and amino acids are produced worldwide each year. Although some of these compounds are produced from petrochemicals, all of them can be obtained by microbial fermentation. The development of a biotechnology-based chemical industry that can benefit more from microbial biomass will be an important milestone for us to build a sustainable future.
Further reading
1- de Souza Vandenberghe, L. P., Garcia, L., Rodrigues, C., Camara, M. C., de Melo Pereira, G. V., de Oliveira, J., & Soccol, C. R. (2017). Potential applications of plant probiotic microorganisms in agriculture and forestry. AIMS Microbiology, 3(3), 629–648. https://doi.org/10.3934/microbiol.2017.3.629
2- Debnath, S., Rawat, D., Mukherjee, A. K., Adhikary, S., & Kundu, R. (2019). Applications and constraints of plant beneficial microorganisms in agriculture. In Biostimulants in plant science. IntechOpen.