Endophytes: Nurturing Crop Health and Sustainable Agriculture

Endophytes are microbes that thrive on the internal tissues of plants without causing diseases. However, they are also a treasure house of secondary compounds and metabolites with a wide range of applications in different sectors. This new book, Endophytes: Nurturing Crop Health and Sustainable Agriculture, brings together recent, crucial information on the possibilities for utilization of endophytic microorganisms in agricultural practices.

This volume brings together key experimental and theoretical research on endophytes and focuses on their applications in different arenas in agriculture. The 20 chapters are categorized into four parts dealing with the roles of endophytes in soil, in plant health, in the management of pests and pathogens, and for sustainable agriculture. The chapters look at the functional roles and uses of endophytes in different aspects of agriculture, providing new information and a better understanding of the networks of the complexity associated with microbes, the agroecosystem, the environment, and human health.

Over 75 scientists working on endophytes and related fields have contributed to this volume, bringing the latest and most significant information together in a concise and meaningful manner. They explain the role of endophytes in the agricultural sector, covering the role of endophytes for enhancing crop productivity, for ensuring plant and soil health, for plant stress modulation, for enhancing plant resilience and mitigating environmental stress, as a biocontrol of soil-borne plant pathogens, for crop pest management, and more. Several chapters cover in-depth the role of endophytes in specific pest insects.

This book will be useful to microbiologists, physiologists, crop protection specialists, biotechnologists, agriculturists, and environmentalists, providing deeper insight on endophytes and their use in pest control, growth and development, as well as enhancing nutritional balance in plants.