ISSN: 0973-7510

E-ISSN: 2581-690X

Review Article | Open Access
Nitika Garg1 , Namarta Gupta1, Pratibha Vyas2, Ruchika Bhardwaj3, Meenakshi Goyal3 and Gagandeep Kaur1
1Department of Botany, College of Basic Sciences and Humanities, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India.
2Department of Microbiology, College of Basic Sciences and Humanities, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India.
3Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, College of Agriculture, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab, India.
Article Number: 10113 | © The Author(s). 2026
J Pure Appl Microbiol. 2026;20(1):139-149. https://doi.org/10.22207/JPAM.20.1.59
Received: 29 November 2024 | Accepted: 14 October 2025 | Published online: 09 March 2026
Issue online: March 2026
Abstract

Millets are an abundant source of micronutrients with great variability and are known as Miracle Grains/Nutri-cereals. Biofortification by plant growth promoting bacteria in millet cultivars with increased levels of iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) can significantly reduce the prevalence of their deficiencies which are common in developing countries that rely mostly on cereals for their nutritional needs and dietary energy. This paper reviews the importance of PGPR in enhancing the availability of zinc and iron in millets through mineral solubilization via siderophore production. This results in acidification of soil by releasing organic acids that binds to cations thus making them available to the plant.

Keywords

Biofortification, Iron, Millets, Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR), Zinc

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© The Author(s) 2026. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted use, sharing, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.