Nanotechnology and Abiotic Stresses

Abstract

Exposure of plants to diverse kinds of abiotic stresses like drought, salinity, temperature waterlogging, pollution and others is common in nature and occurrence of these stresses has increased in the world today. These stress factors cause a huge economic loss due to their adverse effects on crop productivity and plant growth. Therefore there is a continuous need to develop new approaches to mitigate the harmful effects of these stresses on plants. In the recent years nanotechnology is gaining interest of researchers in different fields. Nanoparticles have extremely small size due to which they have acquired some special characteristics which make them different from their bulk counterparts. Nanoparticles have more solubility, surface area and reactivity as compared to the bulk material. Therefore they have gained promising position to ameliorate the harmful effects of abiotic and biotic stress to achieve the goal of sustainable agriculture globally. Because of their impact on stress tolerance and nutritional quality of crops, the research related to the application of nanoparticles is increasing. Different types of nanoparticles have been tested for their potential role in protection from biotic and abiotic stresses. These nanoparticles are reported to overcome nutritional deficiencies, to increase enzymatic activities and help in adhesion of plant growth promoting bacteria to plant roots under abiotic stresses and in these diverse ways, improved the tolerance of crops to stresses. These initial reports are quite promising and have opened a new area of utilizing these nanoparticles for increasing crop productivity under stressful environmental conditions. However in doing so the negative impacts of nanoparticles on environment and plants should not be neglected.