Nanomaterials in Combating Plant Stress: An Approach for Future Applications

In a present scenario, the global agriculture system has been adversely affected by climatic changes. Apart from this, natural as well as human activities have added various xenobiotics type nanomaterials to our environment, leading to deprived crop productivity and food security. In order to overcome such problem, nano-engineering has been emerged as a noble tool for improving production of crops and food sustainability. However, at present nano-engineering techniques has been employed in the crop fields and gaining more and more consideration, but plant- nanomaterial interaction is still in early stages of study. Apart from this, the fortune and transformation of the nanomaterials within plants system is still the subject of consideration. As a result, many investigations have been carried out concerning nanomaterials and their applications in diverse fields together with nano-agricultural products like nano-fertilizers, nano-herbicides, and nano-pesticides. In addition, these nanomaterials can be used as a source of nano-remediation in the field of agriculture having various environmental issues such as sustainability in agriculture, management of plant diseases with crop protection, management of wastewater, limiting nutrient loss and most importantly, enhancing plant’s ability towards abiotic stresses. However, nanomaterials when used at higher concentrations may cause toxic effects due to the production of free radical species, thereby affecting plant growth as well as development. Consequently, an extensive research is required at cellular, sub-cellular and molecular level so as to define the performance of nanomaterials in restraining the plants against various stress factors. Thus, the present chapter provides an overview on the role of nanotechnology in sustainable agricultural practices with an understanding of plant-nanomaterials interaction, in order to better understand their implications with respect to stress physiology of plants for their future applications in plant science.