Amelioration in traditional farming system by exploring the different plant growth-promoting attributes of endophytes for sustainable agriculture

Agriculture demands environmentally friendly, economic and stable agro-practices for achievement of global food security challenges. Exploration of beneficial plant–microbe interactions and input of microbial inoculants has been getting great attention for improvement of traditional agriculture system. Endophytes are beneficial partners of plants; they live inside the host with mutual association. The advantageous role of endophytes is gaining great importance from last century in agricultural research due to their valuable role in enhancement of crop yield and disease management. Endophytes exhibit various plant growth-promoting attributes by production of many bioactive metabolites and by different mechanisms. Development of modern biotechnological approaches to explore the hidden interaction of plants and microbes can be useful tools for establishment of novel bioinoculants for particular crop. In this review, we provide the knowledge about the endophytes, mode of action and their role in the development of sustainable agriculture system for human welfare.