Rhizosphere microbiome manipulation for sustainable crop production

Abstract The major forces driving farm-level production for the ever-growing global population have relied upon mechanized farming techniques, synthetic inputs, and developing high-yielding crop varieties. Recently, however, there has been a gradual shift toward developing sustainable approaches addressing the potential use of beneficial traits of the soil-plant microbiome to establish a sustainable food supply as well as to maintain soil and plant health. The intricate relationship of the soil-plant microbiome complex often faces difficulty in the efficient translation for the broad spectrum of audiences across society. In recent years, there has been a growing need to formulate strategies and streamline the global sharing of the generated information on plant microbiome interactions. In this review, we discuss novel and emerging strategies to use indigenous microbial consortia and engineered exogenous microbial inoculants for rhizosphere engineering. In addition, this review also details the use of these microbial consortia to improve crop yields and environmental protection that are currently in practice.