Divjot Kour

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Assistant Professor at Eternal University

Plant growth promoting (PGP) rhizobacteria are crucial source of fertilizer, which have the potential to boost crop productivity and encourage plant development. Plant nutrition status can be improved by microbial inoculation with naturally occurring nutrients or by adding chemical fertilizers. The purpose of present study was to assess fertilizati...

The increasing industrialization, road and air transport, and intensive agriculture practices to meet the demands of a growing population have become a threat to the environment globally. The utilization of agrochemicals in an inappropriate way to enhance productivity has depleted the soil fertility, and biodiversity and negatively affected the cli...

Endophytic microbes are an outstanding bioresources of bioactive metabolites. Cellulases have a great potential in industrial sectors including textile wet processing, biostoning of denim fabric, biopolishing of textile fibers, softening of garments, and removal of excess dye from the fabrics. In the present investigation, endophytic mushroom was i...

Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are the three most essential micronutrients which play major roles in plant survivability by being a structural or non-structural component of the cell. Plants acquire these nutrients from soil in the fixed (NO3¯, NH4+) and solubilized forms (K+, H2PO4− and HPO42−). In soil, the fixed and solubilized forms of nut...

Plant associated beneficial microbes enhance the availability of the nutrients and promote growth and maintain the health of the crops. The present study selected 25 rhizospheric and endophytic bacteria of maize (Zea mays L.) and screened for attributes of plant growth promotion. Among 25 isolates, 3 bacterial strains EU-PVTR-134, EU-PVKR-149, EU-P...

On earth, soil is one of the most essential parts of nature which plays critical roles in plant growth, water flow, waste products recycling and provides habitats to various organisms. Soil is the combination of organic matter, air, water minerals, and sixteen different essential nutrient elements which are categorized into primary macronutrients,...

Over recent years, the scientific community has acknowledged the crucial role of certain microbial strains inhabiting the intestinal ecosystem in promoting human health, and participating in various beneficial functions for the host. These microorganisms are now referred to as nextgeneration probiotics and are currently considered as biotherapeutic...

The present investigation aims to isolate nitrogen fixing endophytic bacteria from cereals crops and their potential role in plant growth promotion of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) for sustainable growth. In the present investigation, endophytic bacteria were isolated from different cereal crops growing in the Divine Valley of Baru Sahib, Himachal P...

A new area of biotechnology is nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is an emerging field that aims to develope various substances with nano-dimensions that have utilization in the various sectors of pharmaceuticals, bio prospecting, human activities and biomedical applications. An essential stage in the development of nanotechnology is the creation of na...

Heavy metal pollution is one of the modern environmental problems that contaminate soil, water, and air. Heavy metal pollution not only results in significant crop yield losses, but also poses health risks. When subjected to heavy metal toxicity, which happens when the quantity of particular heavy metals in the soil or water exceeds their tolerance...

In the present scenario, growing population demands more food, resulting in the need for sustainable agriculture. Numerous approaches are explored in response to dangers and obstacles to sustainable agriculture. A viable approach is to be exploiting microbial consortium, which generate diverse biostimulants with growth-promoting characteristics for...

Indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers increases agricultural productivity but on the other hand they harms the health of environment and humans. The multifunctional plant growth promoting bacterial strains could be an ideal alternative to synthetic chemical fertilizers. Looking into the benefits of plant growth promoting bacteria, the present...

Agriculture production is greatly impacted by abiotic stresses, which affect the plant growth by ion toxicity, hormonal and nutritional imbalance, and physiological and metabolic changes. Plant-associated plant growth-promoting (PGP) microbes help in plant growth promotion and mitigation of the abiotic stress-induced changes and maintain agricultur...

In the past few decades, the pressure of higher food production to satisfy the demand of ever rising population has inevitably increased the use synthetic agrochemicals which have deterioration effects. Biostimulants containing beneficial microbes (single inoculants and microbial consortium) were found as an ideal substitute of synthetic chemical f...

Plant growth promoting bacterial strains were used as bioinoculants on cereal crops to improve plant growth and plant productivity. Crop responses to inoculation are complex because bacteria are not compatible with each other. Therefore, it is necessary to increase our understanding of the microbial ecology of crop rhizosphere under various agricul...

The field of nanotechnology has the mysterious capacity to reform every subject it touches. Nanotechnology advancements have already altered a variety of scientific and industrial fields. Nanoparticles (NPs) with sizes ranging from 1 to 100 nm (nm) are of great scientific and commercial interest. Their functions and characteristics differ significa...

Medicinal plants constitute a diverse range of the endophytic microbes of economical importance. The endophytic microbial communities have a huge potential in promoting the growth and maintaining the health of their host. The present investigation highlights the isolation of endophytic bacteria from the medicinal plants growing around Baru Sahib re...

The earth’s surface consists of arid, semi-arid, and hyper-arid lands, where life is profoundly challenged by harsh conditions such as temperature fluctuations, water scarcity, high levels of solar radiations, and soil salinity. The harsh environmental conditions pose serious consequences on plant survival, growth, and productivity accessibility of...

Fungi are a unique group of microbes that exist in all of the world’s niches having different habitats and environments. They are known to interact with various species present on the earth, including plants. Fungi interact with different niches of plants such as roots (rhizosphere), tissue, and internal spaces (endophytic) and surfaces (epiphytic)...

In the past few years, people have been more conscious of a healthy diet to sustain their health. The plant’s bioactive compounds play a vital role by exhibiting functional activity and preventing many diseases. Bioactive compounds are extra nutritive constituents that typically occur in small quantities in foods and provide beneficial health prope...

Photoautotrophic microbes are distributed globally and have been here since long (3.5 billion years). These are among the early organisms which included cyanobacteria and various types of algae. These organisms have been found to be rich in important components of food and nutraceuticals which are being probed further and used globally, in addition...

Fungi, especially the endophytic fungi which live in association with the plants, have been known to mimic their hosts in production of structurally diverse biologically active compounds. Bioactive compounds are of great interest as new lead structures for medicine and plant protection. Furthermore, they play an important role in community balancin...

Abiotic and biotic stresses adversely impact the growth and productivity of the crops globally. Stressful environmental conditions affect the plants morphological and physiological characteristics. Increase in the ethylene production and its inhibitory effect on root development is one of the major challenges under stressed conditions. The associat...

Wheat grass, one of the members of Poaceae family, has been examined for therapeutic drugs efficiently. Wheat grass juice has become a popular beverage in various countries. Wheat grass is low in calories but high in nutrients , including antioxidants such as glutathione, vitamin C, and vitamin E. The juice is extracted from shoots of tender wheat...

Agriculture is the backbone of developing countries, which plays an essential role in primary drivers of economy. The increasing use of chemical fertilizers and toxic insecticides endangers the health of human, plant soils, and the environment. Microbial insecticides have been implemented in current scenario for crop protection. Biological agents f...

Phosphorus is needed by plants for their growth and development as well as different metabolic activities simultaneously being the major yield limiting plant nutrient. The application of the phosphatic fertilizers is the only alternative to prevent the phosphorus deficiency in the plants but the over use of the fertilizers depletes the soil fertili...

Endophytic microbes are plant-associated microorganisms that reside in the interior tissue of plants without causing damage to the host plant. Endophytic microbes can boost the availability of nutrient for plant by using a variety of mechanisms such as fixing nitrogen, solubilizing phosphorus, potassium, and zinc, and producing siderophores, ammoni...

Endophytic fungi are known to be treasuretrove of bioactive metabolites. A total of 13 fungal endo-phytes were isolated from leaves and stem of nine medicinalplants on different growth media. All the 13 isolates werescreened for the production of secondary metabolites andantimicrobial activities against pathogenic organisms: Bacil-lus cereus (MTCC-...

Cold stress leads to the disruption of the cellular homeostasis in plants and generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and productivity losses. In the present study, 94 psychrotrophic phosphorus-solubilizing bacteria with multiple plant growth-promoting (PGP) capabilities were isolated from rhizosphere of wheat. The most efficient strain EU-KL94...

Potassium silicate rock is one of the main sources of soil potassium (K), which is the essential macronutrients for plant growth. Potassium is absorbed in the form of K+ ion by plants. The amount of K+ is a limited factor, thus excessive quantity of K fertilizer is being applied in agricultural field worldwide. The excessive K fertilizers applicati...

The quest for increasing agricultural yield due to increasing population pressure and demands for healthy food has inevitably led to the indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers. On the contrary, the exposure of the crops to abiotic stress and biotic stress interferes with crop growth further hindering the productivity. Sustainable agricultural p...

Agrochemicals provide vital nutrients for plant growth to enhance crops yield, but they can pose major agro-environmental issues. Bioinoculants have attracted more and more attention due to their cost effective-eco-friendly and pollution-free characteristics. The aim of this study was to determine whether using a variety of bioinoculants that inclu...

The use of plant growth promoting microbes (PGP) microbes in agriculture has increased due to negative impact of the chemical fertilizers. PGP microbes enhance the plant growth and productivity by diverse mechanisms such as the biological nitrogen fixation; solubilization of phosphorus, potassium and zinc; production of siderophores, plant growth r...

Globally, man-made agrochemicals plays crucial role in plant growth promotion and boost crop yield. The agrochemicals overuse leaves the detrimental damage on the environment and humans. Biostimulants developed from single or multiple microbes (archaea, bacteria, and fungi) could be the appropriate alternative of agrochemical which sustains the agr...

Low-temperature stress can seriously impair plant physiology. Chilling injury leads to a complex array of cellular dysfunctions, and symptoms include chlorosis, sterility, loss of vigor, wilting, and even death of the plants. Furthermore, phosphorus limitations additionally halt the growth of plants. Low-temperature adaptive plant growth–promoting...

The omnipresent creature of the biosphere, the microbiome is a popular topic in the scientific community and the general public because of its benefits and applications in several fields. In agriculture, microbes are used as biofertilizers and biopesticides to improve plant growth, development, and yield without any harmful effect on soil, plant, a...

Intensive agricultural practices with chemical fertilizers are becoming the reason of environmental deterioration. To feed the ever increasing worldwide population with sustainability goals is a one major challenge and biostimulants developed from the beneficial soil and plant microbiome is a better approach for farming practices to increase the cr...

Microbial bioformulations in agriculture is vastly known and accepted for the sustainable agriculture and most of the bioformulation applied in the agricultural fields are developed from a single strain which have displayed inconsistent results. Microbial consortium is one new and promising bioformulation that could be used for growth and developme...

Microbes play crucial functions in maintaining the health and growth of the plants directly or indirectly by supplying nutrients. These microbes could be used as biofertilizers for the enhancement of soil health and growth of crops. In preset investigation, potential microbes from endophytic and rhizospheric region of Aegilops kotschyi growing in g...

Agriculture is one of the exposed sectors to abiotic stress conditions. There are diverse abiotic stress in which low temperature is an important abiotic stress limiting plant growth and development. The low temperature (0–20 °C) adaptive microbial communities are of particular interest because of their adaptability to prevailing conditions. Phosph...

Mushrooms have been an indispensable element of the human culture since antiquity and are cherished all over the globe for their nutritive and therapeutic benefits. Being acknowledged as “the new superfood” of the future, they are a cardinal component of human diet for boosting health status and well being. Mushrooms are endowed with antioxidant, a...

Climate change is emerging as a crucial issue with global attention and leading to abiotic stress conditions. There are different abiotic stress which affects the crop production among which drought is known to be most destructive stress affecting crop productivity and world's food security. Different approaches are under consideration to increase...

Endophytic biology is an emerging field due to their wide range of application in various sectors including agriculture, pharmaceutical, medical, and industries. The endophytic phytomicrobiomes residing inside the tissue of the plant have gained the momentum for plant growth promotion (PGP), crop production and protection along with sustaining the...

Bioremediation is well accepted technology for the removal of pollutants produced by the anthropogenic activities and rapid industrialization. Different innovative tools such as microbes could be employed for the bioremediation of toxicity in environment. The microbial based bioremediation is one of the most effective tools due to maximum output, c...

Globally, the chemical fertilizers use increases day by day for higher crop yield, which negatively affects the soil ecosystem. Over the past few decades, microbial bio-inoculants (single or multiple strains as consortium) have been recognized as potential plant growth promoters. Multiple microbial strains in a single formulation are a new growing...

Environmental contamination due to anthropogenic and natural sources is on rise due to increasing human population, industrialization and urbanization. The diverse range of the chemical pollutants discharged by the industries to the environment disturbs the delicate balance of the ecosystem. The inefficient waste management strategies make the cond...

Over the decades, chemical fertilizers are indiscriminately used in agriculture to increase the crop production, but unfortunately it is considered as a non-sustainable approach due to adverse impact on environment and human health. Bioinoculants provide a better opportunity for ecological farming practices to enhance crop productivity. Different t...

Agriculture faces challenges to fulfill the rising food demand due to shortage of arable land and various environmental stressors. Traditional farming technologies help in fulfilling food demand but they are harmful to humans and environmental sustainability. The food production along with agro‐environmental sustainability could be achieved by enco...

Drought stress is among the most destructive stresses for agricultural productivity. It interferes with normal metabolic activities of the plants resulting, a negative impact on physiology and morphology of the plants. The management of drought stress requires various adaptive and alleviation strategies in which stress adaptive microbiomes are exqu...

Bioinoculants provide better opportunity for ecological farming practices to improve the plant growth and enhanced crop productivity. Different types of bioinoculants containing single microbial culture and multiple microbial strains in single formulation could be used for agricultural sustainability. The different efficient microbial strain in sin...

Food security is one of the major challenges for scientific community and one that is vulnerable to an exponentially increasing global population, unsustainable agricultural practices, and a changing global climate. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations foresees that a 60% increase in world food production over the next two...

Endophytic fungal communities have attracted a great attention to chemists, ecologists, and microbiologists as a treasure trove of biological resource. Endophytic fungi play incredible roles in the ecosystem including abiotic and biotic stress tolerance, eco-adaptation, enhancing growth and development, and maintaining the health of their host. In...

Nanotechnology is a transformative technology with great potential for world food production and security. Recently, the use of nanoparticles in agriculture has exponentially increased in the form of nanofertilizers and nanopesticides as there has been increasing evidence of disadvantages of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to the ecosystem and...

Microbes are organisms that are partner inhabitants of humans and other animals. They have been known to exist in various habitats including water, soil, air, and the interiors of animals as well as plants. These wonders have been known to perform several key roles such as decomposition and nutrient cycling. Their roles in the environment have got...

Globally, by 2050, agricultural food production will be increased to feed the growing population. To achieve the objective in sustainable manner, scientific chronicles have explores the mutualistic interaction between plant roots and rhizosphere microbiome. One of the interactions of plants roots was found with arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi (AMF), a...

Potassium (K) is the foremost macronutrients for growth of plant, soil health and fertility. The huge application of NPK chemical fertilizers negatively impacts the economy and is a threat to environmental sustainability. The rapid depletion of K mineral in soil is due to the application of agrochemicals agricultural fields for the production of cr...

Soil is the basic requirement for agriculture crop production and simultaneously the microbial activity is important to improve soil health for healthy crop growth because microbial communities play an important role in building a complex link between plants and soil. Microbiomes from plants, soil and extreme environments are naturally gifted with...

The Himalayas are one of the most mystical, yet least studied terrains of the world. One of Earth's greatest multifaceted and diverse montane ecosystems is also one of the thirty-four global biodiversity hotspots of the world. These are supposed to have been uplifted about 60-70 million years ago and support, distinct environments, physiography, a...

Industrialization and modernization of agricultural systems contaminated lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere of the Earth. Sustainable remediation of contamination is essential for environmental sustainability. Myco-remediation is proposed to be a green, economical, and efficient technology over conventional remediation technologies to combat e...

One of the diverse groups of organisms after insects, fungi and its diversification are one of the debated topics among the mycologists because they are one important organism that plays various roles in the ecosystem. In the ecosystem, fungi exist in various environments like soil and water and in association with plants as well as animals in whic...

The tiny organism of soil, known as soil microbes have several functional annotations like nutrients cycling and their fixation, mineralization and solubilization, alleviation of biotic caused by pest-insects, microbial pathogens as well as abiotic stresses by harsh environmental conditions, degradation of polluting elements in the environment. The...

Soil microbial diversity is very important part of ecosystem as it plays a significant role in biogeochemical cycles. Currently, health of environment has been depleted due to growing population of the world and human activities like industrialization, overexploitation of chemical based products in agriculture and urbanization. These problems are n...

Endophytes are the hidden companions of inner plant tissues with the ability to undergo various plant growth mechanisms to benefit their host. Looking at the endophytic microbes' benefits, a total of 67 putative endophytic bacteria were isolated using different nutrient growth media from three diverse maize genotypes grown at Baru Sahib the "Valley...

Soil, the skin of the Earth is one of the fundamental natural resource and important component that contributes to the ecosystem. Soil performs a wide range of ecosystem services like food production, climate and water regulation, provision of energy and inhabiting various life forms. This fundamental natural resource of ecosystem is a home of dive...

Fungi are an incredible group of organisms that are grouped under eukaryotes. The organism falls under the fungi was earlier viewed as damaging and pathogenic organisms that infect and kill plants and animals, but as the time flew and researches were being conducted, dark ages of fungi have fallen away and their benefits got the spotlight. Now days...

Over the past few decades, the rapid development of agriculture and industries has resulted in contamination of the environment by diverse pollutants, including heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls, plastics, and various agrochemicals. Their presence in the environment is of great concern due to their toxicity and non-biodegradable nature. Their...

Phosphorus (P) is one of the most important and essential macronutrients next to nitrogen. It is important for plant development but is least mobile nutrient element in plants and soil. Globally, geological sediments are the sources from where phosphorus is mined and most of the mined P is added to agricultural soils so as to meet the critical need...

The survivals of harsh environments, extremophilic microbes, shelters themselves in the conditions like high temperature, high concentration of acids, alkali compounds, salt, metals, radiations or low water content and temperature. Archaea, bacteria and eukarya are the known taxonomic form of life that is supported by the territories of extreme eco...