ABSTRACT
Abiotic stresses in soybean are a major limiting factor in production and productivity across the world. The continuous and injudicious use of chemicals in the fields causes environmental damage and potential human health risks. Taking sustainability and ecosystem functioning into account, simultaneously without compromising productivity, microbe-mediated stress management is advocated. Many plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), plant growth-promoting fungi (PGPF), and microbial endophytes have various direct and indirect mechanisms involved in increasing plant growth against abiotic stresses and are considered to be the cheapest and environmentally safe means of increasing plant fitness under abiotic stresses. They produce many exo-metabolites such as phytohormones, exopolysaccharides (EPS), siderophore, compatible solutes, antioxidant enzymes, and volatile organic compounds. Moreover, they help in nutrient acquisition via biological nitrogen fixation, phosphorus solubilization, and siderophore production during abiotic stress tolerance in the plants. This chapter addresses the effect of various abiotic stresses on soybean and mechanisms of microbe-mediated abiotic stress tolerance in soybean.
