Harnessing Synergistic Biostimulatory Processes: A Plausible Approach for Enhanced Crop Growth and Resilience in Organic Farming

Abstract

Demand for organically grown food crops is rising substantially annually owing to their contributions to human health. However, organic farm production is still generally lower compared to conventional farming. Nutrient availability, content consistency, uptake, assimilation, and crop responses to various stresses were reported as critical yield-limiting factors in many organic farming systems. In recent years, plant biostimulants (BSs) have gained much interest from researchers and growers, and with the objective of integrating these products to enhance nutrient use efficiency (NUE), crop performance, and delivering better stress resilience in organic-related farming. This review gave an overview of direct and indirect mechanisms of microbial and non-microbial BSs in enhancing plant nutrient uptake, physiological status, productivity, resilience to various stressors, and soil-microbe-plant interactions. BSs offer a promising, innovative and sustainable strategy to supplement and replace agrochemicals in the near future. With greater mechanistic clarity, designing purposeful combinations of microbial and non-microbial BSs that would interact synergistically and deliver desired outcomes in terms of acceptable yield and high-quality products sustainably will be pivotal. Understanding these mechanisms will improve the next generation of novel and well-characterized BSs, combining microbial and non-microbial BSs strategically with specific desired synergistic bio-stimulatory action, to deliver enhanced plant growth, yield, quality, and resilience consistently in organic-related cultivation.

Ameliorating Drought Effects in Wheat Using an Exclusive or Co-Applied Rhizobacteria and ZnO Nanoparticles

“…In recent years, advancements in biochemical and molecular tools significantly contributed to unveiling the mode of actions of microbes in mediating plant growth and resilience to stress [ 27 , 28 ]. Zhang et al [ 29 ] appraised that the plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) are very important microbes to sustain plant growth and to minimize the adverse effects of drought.…”

“…The amalgamation of drought coping strategies instead of their alone use may boost agricultural yields [ 28 , 33 ]. In this context, a combination of ZnO NPs with PGPR holds great promise in the agriculture sector [ 34 ].…”

Effects of Coir-Based Growing Medium with Municipal Solid Waste Compost or Biochar on Plant Growth, Mineral Nutrition, and Accumulation of Phytochemicals in Spinach

“…Organic composts exhibit qualities similar to peat in terms of porosity, aeration, and water-holding capacity [ 4 , 5 , 6 ], and they have a higher nutrient content. In addition, organic compost has humic acids and fulvic acids that may increase nutrient availability [ 7 ].…”

Mucilaginibacter sp. K Improves Growth and Induces Salt Tolerance in Nonhost Plants via Multilevel Mechanisms

“…Endogenous applications of plant bio-stimulants (BSs; microorganisms or natural substances) have recently aroused enormous attention globally. As potentially novel, environmentally friendly, cost-effective, and sustainable approaches, aside from growth promotion, they can further improve abiotic stress resistance in plants ( Drobek et al, 2019 ; Sani and Yong, 2021 ). Numerous plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), which belong to bacterial-based BSs, have been adopted as sustainable agronomic practices leading to improved plant growth and yield and reduced susceptibility to biotic and/or abiotic stresses in crop plants, such as soybean, wheat, and pepper ( Hahm et al, 2017 ; Khande et al, 2017 ; Vries et al, 2020 ).…”