Nanofertilizers for sustainable fruit growing: improving productivity and quality

Abstract

With the rise of the world's population, there is a huge demand for highly nutritive food (full of antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals). Fruits are a significant source of nutraceuticals, but the production of fruits is diminishing due to soil nutrient depletion. After the green revolution, conventional fertilizers increased food output, but intensive farming caused soil deterioration and pesticide contamination of food. Conventional fertilizers are ineffective because the crop plant consumes only 20%�30% of the applied fertilizers. The remaining unutilized fertilizers are oxidized or leached into groundwater and rivers, posing problems for cost, eutrophication, and human health. Recently, nanofertilizers have displayed great potential to replace toxic conventional fertilizers due to their unique physicochemical properties at the nanoscale. In this chapter, a comprehensive review of nanoparticles-based nanofertilizers for sustainable fruit production has been laid out. We have briefly discussed the classification of nanofertilizers and later elaborated on their biosynthesis approaches. Next, we have discussed the interaction between nanofertilizers and plants, including recent reports for several metallic/metal oxide and carbon-based nanomaterials. Moreover, we have discussed how nanofertilizers affect gene expression, regulation, and translocation to lessen the effects of abiotic stressors and have further elaborated on numerous benefits of nanofertilizers including enhanced fruit productivity, quality, and shelf life through their beneficial effects on plant anatomical, morphological, physiological, physicochemical, and molecular features.