Recent Developments on Application of Nanotechnology in Micronutrient Fertilization

摘要

Nanotechnology is an emerging field of science being exploited in energy, environment, health sciences and medicine but rarely made use of in agricultural sciences. Recent studies have shown that nanotechnology, might be a potential strategy for enhancing nutrient use efficiencies, have remained stagnant at abysmally low level for the past several decades. Particularly, use efficiencies of the applied micronutrients seldom exceed 2-5% and rest of the applied nutrients get fixed in the soil. Four strategies namely, quick on-site detection of micronutrients using sensors, enhancing the use efficiency by introducing novel nano-formulations, smart delivery of nutrients in plant system, and finally biofortification of micronutrients to alleviate malnutrition in humans can be adopted to improve the micronutrient use efficiencies. In order to overcome the fixation of major portion of added micronutrients, several nano-technological options such as encapsulation of micronutrients, nano-zeolite fortified micronutrients, and nano-emulsion of micronutrients have been attempted and these have proved to be effective in enhancing nutrient use efficiencies besides biofortifcation of Fe and Zn in cereals. Recent advances in this area of research and experience acquired in the past few years are summarized in this review.