ABSTRACT
Nowadays, plant pests and pathogens are responsible for the loss of more than 20-30% of crops. Unfortunately, traditional plant disease management strategies rely heavily on toxic pesticides and fungicides, which pose significant risks to humans and the environment. Fortunately, nanomaterials show great promise in crop protection and plant disease management. These materials can mimic the action of chemical pesticides by serving as carriers of active ingredients such as host-defense-inducing chemicals and pesticides to target pathogens. Due to their ultra-small size, nanomaterials can precisely target and hit pathogens. Nanotechnology offers several benefits to traditional pesticides, such as reducing toxicity, improving shelf-life, and increasing the solubility of poorly water-soluble pesticides. Additionally, nanosensors could revolutionize disease diagnosis, pathogen detection, and residual analysis, making them more precise and faster. Nanoparticles can be utilized in various ways for plant disease management, either as protectants, nanocarriers for insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, and RNA-interference molecules, or as nanocomposites. Despite the many potential advantages of using nanoparticles, very few nanoparticle-based products have been commercialized for agricultural purposes. This is likely due to insufficient field trials and underutilization of pest-crop host systems. Other industries have made great strides in nanotechnology, and to keep up with this progress, agricultural applications must address essential research questions and fill scientific gaps to create realistic and commercialize nanoproducts. This study analyzes the relevance, scope, and potential applications of nanotechnology in plant disease management for the future.
AUTHOR AFFILIATIONS
Department of Botany, MUC Women’s College, BC Road, Burdwan- 713104, West Bengal, India
CITATION
Das Chandan (2024) Plant Disease Management: The Promising Role of Nanotechnology. Environ Sci Arch 3(2): 30-39.
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