Antagonistic Potential of Bacterial Species against Fungal Plant Pathogens (FPP)and Their Role in Plant Growth Promotion (PGP): A Review

Since the 19thcentury to date, the fungal pathogens have been involved in causing devastating diseases in plants. Alltypes of fungal pathogens have been observed in important agricultural crops that lead to significant pre and post-harvest losses. The application of synthetic fungicide against the fungal plant pathogens (FPP) is a traditional man-agement practice but at the same time these fungicides kill other beneficial microbes, insects, animal, and humansand are harmful to environment. The antagonistic microorganism such as bacteria are being used as an alternatestrategy to control the FPP. These antagonistic species are cost-effective and eco-friendly in nature. These biocontrolbacteria have a broad mechanism against fungal pathogens present in the phyllosphere and rhizosphere of the plant.The antagonistic bacteria have different strategies against the FPP, by producing siderophore, biofilm, volatile organ-ic compounds (VOCs), through parasitism, antibiosis, competition for limited resources and induce systemic resis-tance (ISR) in the host plant by activating the immune systems. The commercial bio-products synthesized by themajor bacterial speciesPseudomonas syringae,Burkholderia cepacia,Streptomyces griseoviridis,Pseudomonasfluor-escensandBacillus subtilisare used to controlFusarium,Pythium,Rhizoctonia,Penicillium,Alternaria,andGeotri-chum. The commercial bio-formulations of bacteria act as both antifungal and plant growth regulators. The Plantgrowth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) played a significant role in improving plant health by nitrogen-fixing,phosphorus solubilization, phytohormones production, minimizing soil metal contamination, and by ACC deami-nase antifungal activities. Different articles are available on the specific antifungal activity of bacteria in plant dis-eases. Therefore, this review article has summarized the information on biocontrol activity of bacteria against theFPP and the role of PGPR in plant growth promotion. This review also provided a complete picture of scatteredinformation regarding antifungal activities of bacteria and the role of PGPR.