Nano fertilizers: A new and sustainable opportunity in plant sciences

The area of nanotechnology has countless potential in agriculture and plant sciences. To attain sustainable agriculture and increase crop production nanofertilizers are the novel way in agriculture science. Nanofertilizers are basically engineered nanoparticles (ENP’s) and due to their extremely minute size (1-100nm) and enormous surface area, these nanoparticles have countless and exclusive physiochemical properties. Various types of nanomaterials can be synthesized through top-down and bottom-up approaches in nanotechnology and could be replaced as a part of conventional fertilizer. Several applications have already been designed and implemented in animal sciences, nanomedicines, nano- pharmacology, etc., where ENP’s can be used as a smart delivery system and target specific delivery in living organisms. Researchers are already working with different nanoparticles and found that different nanoparticles can improve plant quality and yield in a significant manner. In fact, nanofertilizers have the potential to improve the agricultural system by developing and synthesizing different types of nanoparticles for plant disease treatments, pathogen detection, improving the ability of plants to absorb nutrients and many more. But we must be equally careful about the use of this nanofertilizers as this area already agonizes with biosafety and ethical issues.