Effect of different nanoparticles on germination and seedling growth in tomato

Abstract

Nanotechnology, the process to generate, manipulate and deploy nanomaterials, represents an area holding significant promise in agricultural scenario. The present experimental investigation demonstrated the effect of nano ZnO, P and Anatase-TiO2 (<100 nm size), particles on the seed germination and seedling growth of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) using local variety Patharkuchi. Tomato seeds were treated with different concentrations of nanoscale ZnO (0, 2, 4, 8, 10 and 14 ppm), P and TiO2 (0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 ppm) including control and their effect was studied on seed germination and seedling growth at 25 days. The experiment was conducted on RBD with three replications. Application of nZnO, P and TiO2 significantly enhanced the characteristics of seed germination and seedling growth for most of the treatments as compared with control. Based on biomass assay, it was found that the seedlings displayed good growth over control, demonstrating a positive effect of the nanoparticle treatment. The response to nano treatment on seed germination along with seedling growth suggested optimum dose limit on these characters and decreased concentration of the performance in highest concentration could be explained as toxic effect of nanoparticle. A significant positive effect on these parameters in different concentrations nanoparticle could be due to highly positive responses of nanoparticle on various seedling growth characteristics.