Microbes and plants in symbiotic relationships have great potential to improve soil quality and fertility through bio-mineralization and synergistic co-evolution. Plant activity with microbes can better be explained by plant growth promoting rhizo-microbes (PGPR), which exhibit antagonistic and synergistic interactions resulting in plant growth enrichment. PGPR greatly affects the characteristics of the soil and plays a vital role in turning barren, poor quality soil into cultivable soil. PGPR's revitalization of soil quality and plant growth was an area actively exploited in many parts of the world for increased agricultural productivity. This typically comes in through direct or indirect approaches. The direct approach involves supplying compounds directly to the plant which encourage plant development. This method is accomplished through strategies such as bio-fertilization, rhizo-remediation and regulation of plant stress. The most common environmental factor constraining the growth of terrestrial plant species is the absorption of water and nutrients from the soil.

PGPR as bio-fertilization improves plant growth by increasing nutrient accessibility or absorption from a limited pool of nutrients in the soil. Another significant role of PGPR is neutralizing plant stress, which extends to both biotic and abiotic stress. Biotic stress is a biological threat, whereas abiotic stress is in the form of physical stress or chemical stress imposed on a plant by the environment. These gaps can be filled with advanced approaches to biotechnology and the use of methods such as nano-encapsulation and micro-encapsulation. This special issue can be modified to incorporate PGPR as a method for combating plant diseases and improving agricultural productivity.

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