article · Agronomy
Nanotechnology offers emerging solutions to support sustainable crop production by interacting directly with plant systems. Nanoparticles can enter and move through plant tissues, influencing physiological processes and modulating cellular defences against environmental extremes and plant pathogens. These mechanisms enable targeted nutrient delivery, improved biocontrol of crop diseases, and greater resilience to biotic and abiotic stresses. Alongside these agricultural benefits, the broader environmental and socioeconomic consequences require careful evaluation. Widespread deployment raises potential concerns regarding ecotoxicity, biodiversity impacts, and overall economic costs and returns. Successfully scaling nanotechnology in agriculture depends on advancing nanoparticle synthesis and characterisation while overcoming sustainability challenges. A balanced approach combining targeted crop enhancements with responsible risk mitigation is essential for future large-scale adoption across farming systems.
Nanotechnology could improve crop yields and disease resistance while reducing resource waste through targeted delivery. However, understanding how nanoparticles behave in living plants and ecosystems is critical. Evaluating both their protective capabilities and environmental side effects helps ensure agricultural innovations increase food production safely without damaging soils, harming biodiversity, or generating unexpected costs for farming communities.
Applications focus on targeted fertiliser delivery, biopesticides, and stress-tolerant crop treatments. Potential end users include input manufacturers, agronomists, and farming enterprises seeking precise nutrient and crop protection tools. Because the work reviews uptake mechanisms, synthetic challenges, ecotoxicity risks, and barriers to large-scale deployment, the underlying technologies remain largely in the research and development phase, requiring further risk mitigation and standardisation before achieving widespread commercial rollout.
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Nanotechnology is rapidly emerging as a transformative force in agriculture, offering innovative solutions to support sustainable crop production. This review examines the interactions between nanoparticles (NPs) and plants, elucidating the underlying mechanisms that govern NP uptake, translocation, and interactions at the cellular level. We explore how NPs influence key physiological processes and modulate plant defense responses to both biotic and abiotic stresses, highlighting their potential for enhancing stress resistance. The diverse applications of NPs in agriculture are also comprehensively surveyed, encompassing targeted delivery of nutrients, enhanced biocontrol of phytopathogens, and engineering improved tolerance to environmental extremes. We also address the broader environmental and socioeconomic implications of the widespread use of NPs in agriculture, critically evaluating their ecotoxicity, impacts on biodiversity, and the associated economic costs and benefits. Finally, we offer a perspective on future directions for research, including emerging trends in NPs synthesis and characterization, challenges to sustainable implementation, and the prospects for large-scale deployment of nanotechnology-enabled agricultural solutions. This review provides a rigorous and balanced assessment of the potential of nanotechnology to revolutionize agricultural practices while acknowledging the need for responsible innovation and risk mitigation.
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DOI: 10.3390/agronomy15051131
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