“…Rhizobia-legume symbiosis and arbuscular mycorrhizal associations are examples of well-studied plant-microbe relationships that have been successfully used in agriculture (Bhattacharyya et al, 2016). Conventionally, beneficial microbes are selected based on in vitro screening for specific taxa with one or more PGP traits, such as nitrogen fixation, phosphorus solubilization, production of growth-regulating hormones, etc., with limited assessment under controlled environmental conditions (Glick, 2012;Choi et al, 2021). Inconsistent production under field conditions is a major problem as inoculants often fail to compete with indigenous soil microbes under different climatic conditions, soil type and other environmental factors (Finkel et al, 2017;Baliyan et al, 2018;Qiu et al, 2019;de Souza et al, 2020).…”