Potential of Biocontrol Agents in Plant Disease Control for Improving Food Safety

Plant disease control is mainly based on extraneous application of pesticides to improve agriculture productivity. However, only a part of applied pesticides is used for killing of pathogens and pests. Large part of applied pesticides remains either as residual pesticide or gets volatilized or leached resulting in ecological and environmental problems, and human health hazards. The increased consumer demands for safe food have invigorated research on development of safe and ecofriendly biopesticides. The use of microorganisms for biological control of pests is considered as a pragmatic approach which can drastically lessen the adverse outcomes of agrochemicals in soil. Rhizospheric microorganisms isolated from various crops produce different antagnostic compounds and inhibit the growth of various phytopathogens and insect pests. Moreover, in several plants, hormones like salicylic acid, jasmonic acid and ethylene contribute towards induction of both, systemic acquired as well as induced systemic resitance. In this article, antagonistic rhizosphere microorganisms have been explored for control of phytopathogens. Further, recent advances in field of biopesticides using rhizosphere microorganisms under field conditions is discussed for improvingcrop productivity in sustainable agriculture