Microbiome: diversity, distribution, and potential role in sustainable crop production

: From microbiomes in cheese to soil, many organisms provide enhancement, enrichment, production, and some degradation to the niche they occupy. Although microbial diversity and microbiomes have been known for centuries, it has become a trendy area to investigate with the advent of omics approaches where a vast amount of information can be gathered about the nature and befits of these microorganisms. This information is crucial given the world's population rise. According to FAO, feeding the world's 9.1 billion people in 2050 will necessitate a 70 percent increase in overall food production. Five steps have been offered to fulfil this increasing global food supply-demand, including decreasing agriculture's footprint, growing more on existing farms, discovering ways to use resources efficiently, modifying our diets, and reducing waste. It is essential to focus on management practices that influence soil health, sustainable productivity, and inorganic inputs to reduce agriculture's footprint. Conventional agriculture has increased agricultural production on a large scale; however, overuse of chemicals has led to food contamination, negative environmental consequences, and disease resistance, all of which have important implications for human health and food security. Microbiome research makes it possible to simultaneously reduce these environmental impacts and steadily increase the quantity and quality of agricultural products. Plant microbiome research focuses on defining the structure and activities of microbial communities in various plant-associated habitats and establishing a relationship between specific microbial taxa and plant performance. The microbes associated with plants in the plant microbiome can provide a variety of advantages, including plant growth promotion, soil fertility and control of pests and plant pathogens. Traditional approaches can only examine a small percentage of the vast unexplored soil microbial world because of their biased detection of microbial genetics and functional diversity through culture methods. Today, with the advent of high throughput sequencing techniques and a variety of "omics" approaches, researchers can now identify microbiome structure and dynamics along with host interactions on an extraordinary level. These approaches will be valuable in establishing the relationship between the structure and function of the soil microbial community and gaining a better understanding of environmental and ecological processes, with a focus on plant -microbe ecosystems.