Actinomycetes Bio-inoculants: A Modern Prospectus for Plant Disease Management

Plant disease management by using natural resources receives considerable awareness all over the world, because it is eco-friendly in nature. Among them, microbes especially actinomycetes have received widespread attention due to its ability to produce bi

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Abstract

Plant disease management by using natural resources receives considerable awareness all over the world, because it is eco-friendly in nature. Among them, microbes especially actinomycetes have received widespread attention due to its ability to produce biologically active compounds. These compounds have been extensively exploited against different kinds of pathogens such as fungus, bacteria, pest, and insects. Actinomycetes are gram-positive saprophytic bacteria and ubiquitous in nature. Numerous strains of actinomycetes have been extensively utilized to manage plant diseases. Actinomycetes are a reservoir of several bioactive compounds and industrially important enzymes. It is widely distributed in the agro-environment, particularly in the plant rhizosphere, and influences plant growth in a significant manner. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of diversity and application of actinomycetes as bio-inoculums against plant pathogens. It also discusses the essential mechanisms and explores the future prospect in order to enhance formulation technology and application practices to acquire full advantage of this group of organism for modern agriculture system. Keywords

Actinomycetes • Bio-inoculant • Mycoparasitism • Bioactive compound • Disease management

M.K. Solanki (*) Guangxi Crop Genetic Improvement and Biotechnology Lab, Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanning 530007, China e-mail: [email protected] M.K. Malviya Biotechnological Applications, G.B. Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development, KosiKatarmal, Almora 263 643, Uttarakhand, India

Z. Wang Agricultural College, Guangxi University, Nanning 530005, China

# Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016 G. Subramaniam et al. (eds.), Plant Growth Promoting Actinobacteria, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0707-1_5

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Introduction

Conventional agriculture practices play a significant role in meeting the food demands of a mounting population over the globe, which has also led to an escalating reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides (Bhardwaj et al. 2014). Due to this fast growth of population, industrialization, and urbanization, the biggest challenge for the scientific community is environmental pollution, and it becomes a potential threat to the human community. The situation can be credited to the continuous decline in agricultural land area that reduces crop productivity simultaneously. Moreover, decrease in agricultural productivity can be attributed to a variety of reasons, but pests and pathogens play a momentous position for crop losses. Crop yield losses due to the pathogenic infection have been ranged between 20 and 40 % over the world (Savary et al. 2012). Plant pathogens not only reduce the crop yield but also damage the quality of food by producing toxins. Crop losses due to pests and pathogens in a changing environment are still constant, and regular use of pesticides creates major problems and risks against human health and the environment. Complete degradation