Drought is a major constraint on agricultural production. Crop genetic improvement for
drought tolerance has received much attention and there is ample information about the
ability of specific soil microbes to influence drought tolerance in plants. However, in nature,
plants interact simultaneously with an array of beneficial, benign and pathogenic microbes.
There is a need to understand the cumulative effect of these multiple interactions on a plant's
ability to overcome abiotic stresses such as drought. The objective of this research was to …