Understanding the Interaction and Potential of Halophytes and Associated Microbiome for Bio-saline Agriculture

Abiotic stresses including drought and salinity have become frontier areas in agricultural research, particularly due to their damaging potential to threaten global food security in near future. Constantly increasing soil salinity has severely damaged the global production of staple food crops. The ever-increasing world population is critically strained already due to the shrinkage of existing agricultural production system. Looking at the constraints, rigorous initiatives have been taken to yield several strategies to utilize conventional and modern approaches for increasing stress tolerance and/or mitigating the stress-induced ill-effects on crop to potentially improve the productivity. Recent literature signifies prominent attempts towards devising new strategies aiming at salinity and drought smart crop cultivation. The use of halophytes and halophyte-associated microbes is among the highly promising approach from both the perspectives of salinity stress mitigation, and saline soil reclamation in the long term. The cutting-edge omics tools have provided deeper insights into the understanding of the interactions of halophytes, associated microbiomes and the soil rhizosphere habitat. We have described ample of mechanism-based evidences to establish the role of halophytic plants and associated microbial communities in establishing a strong base for their application in bio-saline agriculture.