Techniques for improving formulations of bioinoculants.

Bioinoculants are eco-friendly microorganisms having a variety of products commonly utilized for improving the potential of soil and providing the nutrient requirements to the host plant. The usage of chemical fertilizers is not beneficial because it affects the soil microbial communities on large scale. The toxicity of chemical fertilizer decreases the fertility of soil and causes microbial disruption. Bioinoculants that are used as PGPR play an important role in the enhancement of crop production and beneficial for both producers and consumers economically by protecting the soil during unfavourable conditions. The utilization of PGPR in the bioinoculant form imparts successfully sustain agricultural yield production and such formulated products contain living microbial cells of bioinoculants that also helps in seed treatment and enhances the mobilization process of nutrients by the low-cost process. This review mainly focuses on different bioinoculant formulations related to its recent approaches such as metabolite formulations, liquid formulations, solid carrier-based formulations and synthetic polymer-based formulations. This review also gives an overview of some aspects of the bioinoculant efficiency and their appropriate formulation, production and storage condition of microbial cells. © King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology 2020.