Abstract

Since the onset of industrialization, the natural water balance in numerous agroclimatic zones have been ruined by many anthropogenic activities. These activities interfere with the natural dispersion of salt in different regions and also degrade natural and agricultural habitats. The soil salinization is a leading problem to global food safety with the changing environmental conditions. Alternative strategies are required to maintain the agricultural output in saline stressed soil to enhance crop production in an environmental friendly way. The application of beneficial salt tolerant microbes may result in improved plant survivability under stressed conditions through changes in numerous biochemical, physical and molecular pathways. These microbes employ a number of strategies to thrive and reproduce under such conditions, especially by the production of growth hormones, lowering levels of stress hormone ethylene, nitrogen (N) fixation, improved nutrient absorption and water uptake. Alteration in the genes linked to salt overly sensitive (SOS) pathway together with the improvement of gene expression of diverse antioxidant enzymes is among the defined mechanisms used by stress tolerant microbes to overcome the detrimental effects of salinity stress. Omics and meta-omics studies are the powerful tools used to uncover the pathways of unknown genes. However, further precise omics investigations require a thorough understanding of already known molecular mechanism of salinity stress tolerance in plants by growth promoting microbes.

Key words: Agriculture, Antioxidants, Osmoregulation, Resilience, Salinity, Sustainability