Nanotechnology in Agriculture and Environmental Science Editors Sunil K. Deshmukh Advisor Greenvention Biotech Pvt. Ltd. Pune, Maharashtra, India Mandira Kochar Fellow and Area Convenor TERI-Deakin NanoBiotechnology Centre The Energy and Resources Institute New Delhi, India Pawan Kaur Associate Fellow TERI-Deakin Nanobiotechnology Centre The Energy and Resources Institute New Delhi, India Pushplata Prasad Singh Director (Acting) TERI-Deakin Nanobiotechnology Centre The Energy and Resources Institute New Delhi, India p, p, A SCIENCE PUBLISHERS BOOK A SCIENCE PUBLISHERS BOOK First edition published 2023 by CRC Press 6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742 and by CRC Press 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN © 2023 Sunil K. Deshmukh, Mandira Kochar, Pawan Kaur and Pushplata Prasad Singh CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. The authors and publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced in this publication and apologize to copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any copyright material has not been acknowledged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any future reprint. 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Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data (applied for) ISBN: 978-1-032-34811-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-34812-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-32394-5 (ebk) DOI: 10.1201/9781003323945 Typeset in Times New Roman by Radiant Productions Preface Nanotechnology has gained tremendous attention in the last two decades due to its wide applications in several areas ranging from medicine, energy, and textiles to agriculture. These nanoparticles with smaller size with large surface area (1–100 nm) have several potential functions that could be exploited for sustainable agriculture which is the need of the hour. The development of nano chemicals has appeared as promising agents for plant growth, fertilizers, and pesticides. In recent years, the use of nanomaterials has been considered an alternative solution to control plant pests including insects, fungi, and weeds. There are several reports of nanomaterials used as antimicrobial agents for food packaging and agriculture application. Many of these nanoparticles (Ag, Fe, Cu, Si, Al, Zn, ZnO, TiO, CeO, AlO, and carbon nanotubes) 2 2 2 3 have been reported to have some adverse effects on plant growth apart from their antimicrobial properties. Among these nanomaterials, Ag nanoparticles have shown great promise. In food industries, nanoparticles are currently exploited not only for increasing food quality but also for preserving its nutritive value. This book presents applications of nanotechnology to address current problems and challenges in agriculture as well as environmental sciences. This book provides an overview of innovations in nano pesticides, nanofertilizers, bionanosensors, and nano-based delivery systems for improving different aspects of plant productivity. This includes pre-harvest and post-harvest strategies as well detection of contaminants that could be useful for enhancing soil health. Recycling of agricultural waste to beneficial products using nanotechnologies; bionanosensors; the fate of nanomaterials and the ecological consequences of their delivery into the environment; safety and nanotoxicity issues are other important issues that are dealt with in this book. Specific applications, the management of agriculture wastes and wastewater, are summarized from the viewpoint of integrated waste management in India. Book chapters have been written by experts with special reference to the innovations and latest developments in the mentioned areas of nanobiotechnology that have applications and commercial importance; especially for crop fields and post-harvest management. Despite the research and development to promote the use of nanotechnology for agriculture and environmental issues, knowledge gaps and uncertainties about how to fill the gaps are more prevalent than scientific certainties about the public health and environmental effects of nanomaterials. So, finally, we briefly discuss the toxicity of nanomaterials to facilitate the use of agricultural nanotechnology products. This book will be highly useful for active researchers and scientists in the agricultural sector, academia as well as industry, including nanotechnologists, plant pathologists, agronomists, agro-chemists, environmental technologists, and all scientists looking for sustainability in agriculture. iv Nanotechnology in Agriculture and Environmental Science We are grateful to all the contributors for their timely submission/revision of stimulating chapters in the field of Agri nanobiotechnology. We are indebted to the reviewers for value addition to the chapter by meticulous examination. The CRC Press has extended all kinds of encouragement and cooperation during the tenure of this book despite the heavy backlog, owing to the pandemic, to present this book as scheduled. Pune, India Sunil K. Deshmukh New Delhi, India Mandira Kochar New Delhi, India Pawan Kaur New Delhi, India Pushplata Prasad Singh Contents Preface iii 1. Agricultural Nanobiotechnology: Current Possibilities and Constraints 1 Pooja and Renu Munjal Section A: Agro-Nanotechnology Nanofertilizers 2. Application of Metallic Nanoparticles as Agri Inputs: Modulation 16 in Nanoparticle Design and Application Dosage Needed Shweta Gehlout, Ayushi Priyam, Drishti, Luis Afonso, Aaron G Schultz and Pushplata Prasad Singh 3. Recent Advances in Nanofertilizer Development 55 Ankita Bedi and Braj Raj Singh 4. Nanofertilizers: Importance in Nutrient Management 69 Mona Nagargade, Vishal Tyagi, Dileep Kumar, SK Shukla and AD Pathak Plant Disease Management 5. Polymeric Nano-fungicides for the Management of Fungal 82 Diseases in Crops Ruma Rani and Pawan Kaur 6. Nano-enabled Pesticides: Status and Perspectives 99 CC Sheeja, Damodaran Arun and Lekha Divya 7. Chitosan Nanomaterials for Post Flowering Stalk Rot Control in Maize 108 Garima Sharma, Damyanti Prajapati, Ajay Pal and Vinod Saharan 8. Nanophytovirology Approach to Combat Plant Viral Diseases 127 Sanjana Varma, Neha Jaiswal, Niraj Vyawahare, Anil T Pawar, Rashmi S Tupe, Varsha Wankhade, Koteswara Rao Vamkudoth and Bhushan P Chaudhari Miscellaneous Application of Nanoparticles 9. Nanosilver and Smart Delivery in Agricultural System 156 Rythem Anand and Madhulika Bhagat vi Nanotechnology in Agriculture and Environmental Science 10. Recent Approaches in Nanobioformulation for Sustainable 166 Agriculture Ngangom Bidyarani, Gunjan Vyas, Jyoti Jaiswal, Sunil K Deshmukh and Umesh Kumar 11. Nanobiosensors for Monitoring Soil and Water Health 183 Archeka, Nidhi Chauhan, Neelam, Kusum and Vinita Hooda 12. Bacterial Small RNA and Nanotechnology 203 Vatsala Koul and Mandira Kochar 13. Application of Nanoparticles for Quality and Safety Enhancement 227 of Foods of Animal Origin Kandeepan Gurunathan 14. Exploring the Potential of Nanotechnology in Cotton Breeding: 261 Huge Possibilities Ahead Sapna Grewal, Promila, Santosh Kumari, Sonia Goel and Shikha Yashveer Section B: Environmental Nanotechnology Recycling of Agricultural Waste 15. Synthesis of Agro-waste-mediated Silica Nanoparticles: An Approach 278 Towards Sustainable Agriculture Rita Choudhary, Pawan Kaur and Alok Adholeya 16. Recent Advances in Heavy Metal Removal: Using 292 Nanocellulose Synthesized from Agricultural Waste Mandeep Kaur, Praveen Sharma and Santosh Kumari Ecosafety and Phytotoxicity 17. Ecosafety and Phytotoxicity Associated with Titania Nanoparticles 306 Nupur Bahadur and Paromita Das Index 315 About the Editors 325 Chapter 1 Agricultural Nanobiotechnology: Current Possibilities and Constraints Pooja and Renu Munjal* 1. Introduction Agriculture is backbone of most of the developing countries in the world providing food directly and indirectly to mankind, but present-day agriculture is facing challenges like: (1) Global increase in human population. The present global population of 7.7 billion and is projected to grow to nearly 9.8 billion by 2050. Feeding humanity will require at least a 50% increase in the production of food and other agricultural products. (2) Hunger and extreme poverty have decreased globally since the 1990s. Yet nearly 800 million people are chronically hungry, and 2 billion, which constitutes 27% of humanity, suffer micronutrient deficiencies. (3) Average annual increase in crop yield has declined since the 1960s; for example, until the mid-1980s, the rate was 3% annually for wheat but is now only 1.5%. (4) Climate change has reduced the potential yield of major food crops, for example, for each degree rise in average global temperature there will be reduction of 6% in wheat, 3.2% rice, 7.4% maize and 3% soya bean (FAOSTAT, 2016). Recent agricultural practices associated with the Green Revolution have greatly increased the global food supply but is not effective in the present-day scenario. For example, the alternative agriculture system like conservation agriculture is neither new nor practical because it works in an open system, and thereby it is thermodynamically not very tenable in such a system. Department of Botany and Plant Physiology, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, 125 004, Haryana, India. * Corresponding author: [email protected] 2 Nanotechnology in Agriculture and Environmental Science Organic farming can neither accomplish high productivity, nor ensure a better environment and better food products. Similarly, rainfed/dry land farming falls short of matching the productivity that irrigated farming can provide (Mukhopadhyay, 2014). In recent years, nanobiotechnology is gaining momentum in agriculture and it is evidenced from the fact that the number of publications, the number of patents filed, and the number of patents granted in agriculture science has increased in the last two decades (Fig. 1.1). China is the leading country in filing patented products and the number of patents granted (Kah et al., 2019). The present chapter discusses various applications of nanobiotechnology in agriculture and constraints associated with it. 2. Nanobiotechnology and Nanomaterial The term ‘nanotechnology’ was coined by Norio Taniguichi, a professor at Tokyo University of Science, in 1974 (Khan et al., 2014) and Richard Feynman is known as father of nanotechnology. According to the British Standard Institution (BSI) (2005), nanobiotechnology is a field of science that deals with the design, characterization, production, and application of structure, device, and system by controlling shape and size at nanoscale. International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the world’s largest developer of standards, has defined nanomaterial as a material with any external dimension in the nanoscale or having internal structure or surface structure in the nanoscale, where the length range of approximately 1–100 nm is considered as nanoscale. These nanomaterials have extraordinary properties like high surface energy, high surface-to-volume ratio, high catalytic efficiency, and strong adsorption ability. Nanomaterials have different properties from their bulk counterpart because (1) Nanomaterials have a relatively larger surface area when compared to the same mass of material produced in a larger form. This can make materials more chemically reactive and affect their strength or electrical properties. (2) Quantum effects begin to dominate the behavior of matter at the nanoscale affecting the optical, electrical, and magnetic. 3. Classification, Synthesis and Characterization  of Nanomaterial Nanomaterial exists both naturally in the environment or can be fabricated artificially and are called as called anthropogenic nanoparticles, manufactured nanoparticles or engineered nanoparticles. Nanoparticles (NPs) are classified in different categories based on shape, dimension, phase composition, and nature of the material. Fundamentally, there are two approaches for the synthesis of nanomaterials (1) top–down approach and (2) bottom–up approach (Fig. 1.2). • Top–Down Approach The top–down approach includes slicing of bulk material into nanoscale material by using micro fabrication techniques in which externally controlled tools are used to cut, mill, and shape materials into the desired size and shape. • Bottom–Up Approach Bottom–up approach includes assembly of a defined structure by joining atom by atom, molecule by molecule, and cluster by cluster or self-organization. Agricultural Nanobiotechnology: Current Possibilities and Constraints 3 s nt e at P B) 6. ( 1 0 2 – 0 9 9 1 m o g fr n of fili e at d eir h d on t20). e0 d basal., 2 dereh et nsiKa e co16 ( s0 n pha90–2 o9 catim 1 he applidate fro nts in tcation s search. (A) Patesed on their publi ogle Patentgranted ba o G a m o d fr e n ur et s r nt e at p of er b m u N 1. 1. g. Fi