"Harnessing the power of soil microbes: Their dual impact in integrated nutrient management and mediating climate stress for sustainable rice crop production" A systematic review

Sustainable agricultural practices are essential to meet food demands for the increased population while minimizing the environmental impact. Considering rice as staple food for most of the world's population, it requires innovative approaches to ensure sustainable production. In this paper, we create a hypothesis that integrated nutrient management (INM) acts as a source of energy for microbes and improves the physical, chemical and biological properties of soils, but the current understanding of how soil microbiomes interact in integrated nutrient management toward mediating climate stress to support sustainable rice crop production is limited. Hence, we develop literature search through Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) to explore the hidden knowledge related to that question. The outcomes of the study are postulated as a viable option to minimize excessive chemical fertilizers and promote organic-based nutrient management that directly impacts microbial consortia. This review uncovered that plant-microbe interactions and nutrient transformation depend heavily on soil microbes while the abundance, diversity, and activity of soil microbiome is enhanced more with integrated nutrient management than with sole synthetic fertilizers. Through their ability to enhance nutrient availability and uptake, improve soil structure, heavy metal detoxification, salinity and drought tolerance, and suppress pathogens, they can alleviate abiotic stress associated with climate change. Therefore, optimization of microbial communities serves as a potential mechanism for INM to enhance rice yield and mitigate climate stress. This would improve soil health and enhance the resilience of the rice plant to climate change. However, despite various benefits obtained through INM and microbes in paddy production systems, the literature indicated that adoption of this technology is limited to smallholder farmers due to lack of knowledge, unavailability of sufficient organic materials and poor understanding of the long-term impacts associated with over-application of chemical fertilizers. Therefore, scientists must translate several research discoveries related to sustainable agriculture into simple language that can be adopted by farmers and future research should be a farmers-participatory approach to generate awareness investments and knowledge of farmers in adopting sustainability measures. Additionally, research could focus on identifying mechanisms by which microbiomes improve nutrient uptake and rice growth and how these mechanisms can be optimized through integrated nutrient management strategies with regard to climate stresses.