Agriculture is a major contributor to the world's food supply and is highly dependent on field crops, which face serious threats such as poor soil quality, biotic and abiotic stresses, and changing climatic conditions. To address these challenges, major efforts are needed to increase field crop production in a sustainable manner. Increasing desertification due to climate change and loss of arable land are severely limiting the amount of land available to produce food for a growing population. In addition, the overuse of fertilizers and pesticides has led to an unprecedented increase in global productivity, but also to many ecosystem problems. To sustainably increase agricultural production, innovative and environmentally friendly strategies are needed to reduce the use of chemicals in agriculture. Plant Growth Promoting Bacteria (PGPB), or the use of organic or nano-organic chemistry compounds, could be a low-cost, long-term solution to restore soil fertility, as they have a wide range of benefits in agriculture, including increasing crop productivity, improving nutrient levels and inhibiting pathogen growth.

This Research Topic aims to highlight the growing knowledge of these beneficial plant interactions and their direct impact on plant and ecosystem performance, as well as open questions and challenges. The objective is to reflect the growing basic knowledge and its direct translation into ecological and sustainable practices for plant growth, soil management, ecosystem conservation, and agricultural progress. Specific questions to be addressed include how PGPB and organic or nano-organic compounds can be effectively integrated into current agricultural practices, and what genetic, molecular, and biochemical mechanisms underpin these beneficial interactions.

To gather further insights into the integration of beneficial microorganisms, organic, and nano-organic chemistry compounds in mitigating plant stresses, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

- Microorganisms, the use of organic compounds and their interaction
- Microbial Ecology
- Plant partners in symbiotic associations or their impact on environmental stresses, including those associated with global climate change
- Emphasis on genomics, genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, and physiology associated with pathogenic, symbiotic, and associative interactions of microorganisms with plants

Scientists and experts are invited to submit original research articles and reviews that improve our understanding of plant-microbe interactions and contribute to crop improvement. In order to characterize these interactions, studies combining multidisciplinary approaches are encouraged.

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Frontiers in Microbiology

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