Nano-Fertilization to Achieve Balanced Crop Nutrition-A Review

An effort of nano-fertilizers in agriculture system is widely used to reduce fertilizer's losses, improve nutrient use efficiency, minimize environmental pollution and also provides balanced crop nutrition. Nano-particles are atomic or molecular aggregates with at least one dimension between 1 and 100nm, that can drastically modify their physico-chemical properties compared to the bulk material. Nanofertilizers are known to emit nutrients slowly and steadily for more than 35 days which may help in enhancing the nutrient use efficiency without any associated negative effects. Since the nano-fertilizers are formulated to deliver slowly over a long period of time, the loss of nutrients is substantially reduced vis-a-vis environmental safety. The study done on nano-fertilizers is very limited across the world but the reported literature clearly demonstrated that these designed fertilizers have a potential role to play in sustaining crop productivity. This review paper focuses on synthesis, characteristics and release behaviour of macro and micronutrient carrying nanofertilizers and their application in achieving balanced nutrition of crop.