Emerging Agriculture Applications of Silver Nanoparticles

Abstract

Agriculture farming is the foundation of most developing economies, roughly 60% of the population relies on agriculture. The Indian farming division represents 18% of India's total national output and gives work to 50% of the workforce of the nation. Research areas like crop disease detection, soil quality improvement, nano-fertilizers and seed germination are still focused areas and researchers are attracted to them. To deal with this fascinating sector, nanotechnology which is an interdisciplinary research field is providing a platform. For example, advancement in nano-fertilizers, which are having high absorption efficiency into the targeted plant due to high surface-to-volume ratio. By using phosphorus nano-fertilizers, absorption efficiencies of up to 90.6% were achieved. Another beneficial aspect of using nano-fertilizers is the ability to provide a slow release of nutrients into the plant over a period of 40-50 days, rather than the 4-10 days period of conventional fertilizers. In the present article, we have briefly discussed the application of nanotechnology from an agricultural perspective. Herein, we have summarized the applications of silver (Ag) nanoparticles in agriculture such as crop productivity, crop disease detection, food packaging, soil quality, etc.