Overview on Recent Developments in the Design, Application, and Impacts of Nanofertilizers in Agriculture

Nano hybrid fertilizers: A review on the state of the art in sustainable agriculture

The advent of Nanohybrid (NH) fertilizers represents a groundbreaking advancement in the pursuit of precision and sustainable agriculture. This review abstract encapsulates the transformative potential of these innovative formulations in addressing key challenges faced by modern farming practices. By incorporating nanotechnology into traditional fertilizer matrices, nanohybrid formulations enable precise control over nutrient release, facilitating optimal nutrient uptake by crops. This enhanced precision not only fosters improved crop yields but also mitigates issues of over-fertilization, aligning with the principles of sustainable agriculture. Furthermore, nanohybrid fertilizers exhibit the promise of minimizing environmental impact. Their controlled release mechanisms significantly reduce nutrient runoff, thereby curbing water pollution and safeguarding ecosystems. This dual benefit of precision nutrient delivery and environmental sustainability positions nanohybrid fertilizers as a crucial tool in the arsenal of precision agriculture practices. The intricate processes of uptake, translocation, and biodistribution of nutrients within plants are examined in the context of nanohybrid fertilizers. The nanoscale features of these formulations play a pivotal role in governing the efficiency of nutrient absorption, internal transport, and distribution within plant tissues. Factors affecting the performance of nanohybrid fertilizers are scrutinized, encompassing aspects such as soil type, crop variety, and environmental conditions. Understanding these variables is crucial for tailoring nanohybrid formulations to specific agricultural contexts, and optimizing their impact on crop productivity and resource efficiency. Environmental considerations are integral to the review, assessing the broader implications of nanohybrid fertilizer application. This review offers a holistic overview of nanohybrid fertilizers in precision and sustainable agriculture. Exploring delivery mechanisms, synthesis methods, uptake dynamics, biodistribution patterns, influencing factors, and environmental implications, it provides a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted role and implications of nanohybrid fertilizers in advancing modern agricultural practices.

A review of chitosan nanoparticles: Nature's gift for transforming agriculture through smart and effective delivery mechanisms

Chitosan nanoparticles (CNPs) have emerged as a promising tool in agricultural advancements due to their unique properties including, biocompatability, biodegradability, non-toxicity and remarkable versatility. These inherent properties along with their antimicrobial, antioxidant and eliciting activities enable CNPs to play an important role in increasing agricultural productivity, enhancing nutrient absorption and improving pest management strategies. Furthermore, the nano-formulation of chitosan have the ability to encapsulate various agricultural amendments, enabling the controlled release of pesticides, fertilizers, plant growth promoters and biocontrol agents, thus offering precise and targeted delivery mechanisms for enhanced efficiency. This review provides a comprehensive analysis of the latest research and developments in the use of CNPs for enhancing agricultural practices through smart and effective delivery mechanisms. It discusses the synthesis methods, physicochemical properties, and their role in enhancing seed germination and plant growth, crop protection against biotic and abiotic stresses, improving soil quality and reducing the environmental pollution and delivery of agricultural amendments. Furthermore, the potential environmental benefits and future directions for integrating CNPs into sustainable agricultural systems are explored. This review aims to shed light on the transformative potential of chitosan nanoparticles as nature's gift for revolutionizing agriculture and fostering eco-friendly farming practices.

Sustainable SMART fertilizers in agriculture systems: A review on fundamentals to in-field applications

Agriculture will face the issue of ensuring food security for a growing global population without compromising environmental security as demand for the world's food systems increases in the next decades. To provide enough food and reduce the harmful effects of chemical fertilization and improper disposal or reusing of agricultural wastes on the environment, will be required to apply current technologies in agroecosystems. Combining biotechnology and nanotechnology has the potential to transform agricultural practices and offer answers to both immediate and long-term issues. This review study seeks to identify, categorize, and characterize the so-called smart fertilizers as the future frontier of sustainable agriculture. The conventional fertilizer and smart fertilizers in general are covered in the first section of this review. Another key barrier preventing the widespread use of smart fertilizers in agriculture is the high cost of materials. Nevertheless, smart fertilizers are widely represented on the world market and are actively used in farms that have already switched to sustainable technologies. The advantages and disadvantages of various raw materials used to create smart fertilizers, with a focus on inorganic and organic materials, synthetic and natural polymers, along with their physical and chemical preparation processes, are contrasted in the following sections. The rate and the mechanism of release are covered. The purpose of this study is to provide a deep understanding of the advancements in smart fertilizers during the last ten years. Trends are also recognized and studied to provide insight for upcoming agricultural research projects.

Nanofertilizers: The Next Generation of Agrochemicals for Long-Term Impact on Sustainability in Farming Systems

The microflora of the soil is adversely affected by chemical fertilizers. Excessive use of chemical fertilizers has increased crop yield dramatically at the cost of soil vigor. The pH of the soil is temporarily changed by chemical fertilizers, which kill the beneficial soil microflora and can cause absorption stress on crop plants. This leads to higher dosages during the application, causing groundwater leaching and environmental toxicity. Nanofertilizers (NFs) reduce the quantity of fertilizer needed in agriculture, enhance nutrient uptake efficiency, and decrease fertilizer loss due to runoff and leaching. Moreover, NFs can be used for soil or foliar applications and have shown promising results in a variety of plant species. The main constituents of nanomaterials are micro- and macronutrient precursors and their properties at the nanoscale. Innovative approaches to their application as a growth promoter for crops, their modes of application, and the mechanism of absorption in plant tissues are reviewed in this article. In addition, the review analyzes potential shortcomings and future considerations for the commercial agricultural application of NFs.

Nano-biofertilizers as bio-emerging strategies for sustainable agriculture development: Potentiality and their limitations

Nanotechnology is a burgeoning revolutionary technology in the 21st century. Climate emergencies caused by natural or anthropogenic activities have tragically consequential repercussions on agricultural output worldwide. Modern cropping systems profoundly rely on synthetic fertilizers to deliver necessary nutrients, yet their prolonged and persistent administration is hazardous to the environment, soil fertility, and nutritional dynamics of the rhizospheric microbiome. By addressing the drawback of physico-chemically synthesized nano-dimensioned fertilizer, this review emphasizes on integrating nanoparticles and biofertilizers conjointly as nano-biofertilizers (NBF) which can safeguard global food security, in light of the population surge. Inoculation with nanoparticles and biofertilizers strengthens plant growth and stress tolerance. However, combined together (NBF), they have emerged as a more economically and environmentally sustainable, highly versatile, and long-lasting agriculture tool. Microbe-based green synthesis using the encapsulation of inorganic nanoparticles of Si, Zn, Cu, Fe, Ni, Ti, and Ag as well as organic materials, including chitosan, cellulose, and starch, to formulate NBFs can eliminate the constraints of conventional fertilizer contamination. The application of NBFs is in its infancy in agriculture, yet it has promising potential for transforming traditional farming techniques into smart agriculture, compared to any of the existing strategies. From this perspective, this review is an attempt to provide a comprehensive understanding of the formulations, fabrication, and characterization of NBFs while unraveling the underlying mechanisms of plant-NBF interactions along with their contribution to climate change-induced biotic and abiotic stress tolerance. We substantially summarize the latest advancements of field applications of NBFs for precision farming. Moreover, we critically revised their applications in agro-ecosystems according to the current literature, while also discussing the bottlenecks and future trends for developing potent NBFs.

Biological Nanofertilizers to Enhance Growth Potential of Strawberry Seedlings by Boosting Photosynthetic Pigments, Plant Enzymatic Antioxidants, and Nutritional Status

Strawberry production presents special challenges due the plants' shallow roots. The rooting stage of strawberry is a crucial period in the production of this important crop. Several amendments have been applied to support the growth and production of strawberry, particularly fertilizers, to overcome rooting problems. Therefore, the current investigation was carried out to evaluate the application of biological nanofertilizers in promoting strawberry rooting. The treatments included applying two different nanofertilizers produced biologically, nano-selenium (i.e., 25, 50, 75, and 100 mg L^-1) and nano-copper (i.e., 50 and 100 mg L^-1), plus a control (untreated seedlings). The rooting of strawberry seedlings was investigated by measuring the vegetative growth parameters (root weight, seedling weight, seedling length, and number of leaves), plant enzymatic antioxidants (catalase, peroxidase, and polyphenol oxidase activity), and chlorophyll content and its fluorescence and by evaluating the nutritional status (content of nutrients in the fruit and their uptake). The results showed that the applied nanofertilizers improved the growth, photosynthetic pigments, antioxidant content, and nutritional status of the seedlings compared to the control. A high significant increase in nutrient contents reached to more than 14-fold, 6-fold, 5-folf, and 4-fold for Cu, Mn, N, and Se contents, respectively, due to the applied nanofertilizers compared with the control. The result was related to the biological roles of both Se and CuO in activating the many plant enzymes. Comparing the Se with the CuO nanofertilizer, Cu had the strongest effect, which was shown in the higher values in all studied properties. This study showed that nanofertilizers are useful to stimulate strawberry seedling growth and most likely would also be beneficial for other horticultural crops. In general, the applied 100 ppm of biological nano-Se or nano-CuO might achieve the best growth of strawberry seedlings under growth conditions in greenhouses compared to the control. Along with the economic dimension, the ecological dimension of biological nanofertilizers still needs more investigation.