Chapter 7 - Interactions of metal and metal-oxide nanomaterials with agricultural crops: an overview

Abstract

In recent years, the demand for nanomaterials (NMs) has increased due to their application in agriculture and other sectors. Many metal and metal-oxide NMs have been examined for their sustainable role and/or interaction with agricultural crops in terms of growth and production. The physical and chemical properties of NMs have shown important role in their uptake, accumulation, and translocation in different crop species. NMs can be accumulated in crop roots and transported to other parts of the plant. Foliar spray of NMs on plants showed both inhibitory and stimulatory response with respect to the developmental (seed germination, shoot and root length, number of leaf production, biomass, and yield characteristics), physiological (mainly photosynthetic parameters such as net photosynthetic rate, photochemical fluorescence, and quantum yield), biochemical (enzymatic and nonenzymatic components), and some molecular (microRNA and gene expression) levels. The responses are controlled by numerous factors, for instance NMs size, shape, concentration, crop species exposed, growth media, and exposure time. This chapter presents an overview of current status and future prospects of metal and metal-oxide NMs accumulation, transformation, transport, and possible interaction with agricultural crop species.