The salinization of soil is responsible for the reduction in the growth and development of plants. As the global population increases day by day, there is a decrease in the cultivation of farmland due to the salinization of soil, which threatens food security. Salt-affected soils occur all over the world, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. The total area of global salt-affected soil is 1 billion ha, and in India, an area of nearly 6.74 million ha⁻¹ is salt-stressed, out of which 2.95 million ha⁻¹ are saline soil (including coastal) and 3.78 million ha⁻¹ are alkali soil. The rectification and management of salt-stressed soils require specific approaches for sustainable crop production. Remediating salt-affected soil by chemical, physical and biological methods with available resources is recommended for agricultural purposes. Bioremediation is an eco-friendly approach compared to chemical and physical methods. The role of microorganisms has been documented by many workers for the bioremediation of such problematic soils. Halophilic Bacteria, Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, Cyanobacteria, plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria and microbial inoculation have been found to be effective for plant growth promotion under salt-stress conditions. The microbial mediated approaches can be adopted for the mitigation of salt-affected soil and help increase crop productivity. A microbial product consisting of beneficial halophiles maintains and enhances the soil health and the yield of the crop in salt-affected soil. This review will focus on the remediation of salt-affected soil by using microorganisms and their mechanisms in the soil and interaction with the plants.

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR associated nuclease 9 (CRISPR-Cas9) system was instigated first into eukaryotes in the last ten years are becoming productive and worldwide application for genome modification. Genome engineering through insertion of foreign DNA insert have numerous disadvantages which could be overcome by use of DNA-free genome editing. Various ways of DNA-free genome editing mediated by CRISPR/Cas systems are CRISPR/Cas delivery as ribonucleoprotein, delivery of CRISPR/Cas as virus-like particles and agrobacterium-based delivery of CRISPR/Cas. Crop improvement through DNA-free genome editing via CRISPR/Cas have been applied in rice, wheat, maize, tomato, soybean and rare species like Nicotiana benthamiana etc. It is method of choice for precise genome editing without genome shuffle in an organism.