Enhancing Crop Productivity in Salt-Affected Environments by Stimulating Soil Biological Processes and Remediation Using Nanotechnology

Abstract

World food production systems primarily crop lands are set to face unprecedented stress for matching production with overwhelming population growth in the backdrop of increasing natural calamities and climate change. Another green revolution does not seem likely with the same approaches as followed in the past. A large extent of marginally productive lands (including salt affected) in India and the world presents opportunity for bolstering food security via land reclamation, improved productivity, and resource conservation by enhancing biological functions of soil. The presence of soluble salts in the soil and water, including surface water and groundwater, poses great threat to productivity of land. Land use practices, such as clearing and irrigation, have significantly increased the extent of the problem. The most obvious effect of salts in soil includes decline in agricultural productivity. High concentrations of salt in the soil are toxic to plants, restrict plant uptake of water, and prevent plants from taking up essential nutrients. There are several approaches to manage these lands including chemical reclamation, but they are very resource expensive. Nanotechnology as an emerging science may play a greater role for managing these salt-affected marginal lands. Though nanotechnology, in respect of both research and development, is as yet at a nascent stage, it can be effectively directed toward understanding and creating improved materials, devices, and systems and in exploiting the nano-properties for managing these lands. Nanotechnology has not left agricultural sector untouched and promises to revolutionize the agricultural sector with new tools for molecular treatment of plant diseases, rapid detection of diseases, and enhancing the ability of plant to absorb nutrients, thus increasing soil fertility and crop production. The potential of nanotechnology is yet to be fully exploited in salt-affected land management, and agriculture, yet if once realized, it is likely to bring a sea change in agricultural production and productivity.