Nanotechnology in agriculture, livestock, and aquaculture in China. A review

Abstract

Nanoscience emerged in the late 1980s and is developed and applied in China since the middle of the 1990s. Although nanotechnologies have been less developed in agronomy than other disciplines, due to less investment, nanotechnologies have the potential to improve agricultural production. Here, we review more than 200 reports involving nanoscience in agriculture, livestock, and aquaculture. The major points are as follows: (1) nanotechnologies used for seeds and water improved plant germination, growth, yield, and quality. (2) Nanotechnologies could increase the storage period for vegetables and fruits. (3) For livestock and poultry breeding, nanotechnologies improved animals immunity, oxidation resistance, and production and decreased antibiotic use and manure odor. For instance, the average daily gain of pig increased by 9.9-15.3 %, the ratio of feedstuff to weight decreased by 7.5-10.3 %, and the diarrhea rate decreased by 55.6-66.7 %. (4) Nanotechnologies for water disinfection in fishpond increased water quality and increased yields and survivals of fish and prawn. (5) Nanotechnologies for pesticides increased pesticide performance threefold and reduced cost by 50 %. (6) Nano urea increased the agronomic efficiency of nitrogen fertilization by 44.5 % and the grain yield by 10.2 %, versus normal urea. (7) Nanotechnologies are widely used for rapid detection and diagnosis, notably for clinical examination, food safety testing, and animal epidemic surveillance. (8) Nanotechnologies may also have adverse effects that are so far not well known.

Fortification of micronutrients for efficient agronomic production: a review

“…Image modified from Prasad et al (2012), Raliya and Tarafdar (2013), and Servin et al (2015a), with permission micronutrients, so that they accumulate, are redistributed, and solubilized inside plant tissues, as shown for Cu, Zn, and also Mg (Dimkpa et al 2012b(Dimkpa et al , 2013aWang et al 2012aWang et al , b, 2013aLv et al 2014). Nanofertilizers are already used in crop production in China, but reported only for urea (Huang et al 2015), and should therefore be extended to micronutrients. Nanopackaging can be leveraged to reduce nutrient losses to the environment (Huang et al 2015;Liu and Lal 2015), which is characteristic of nutrients administered as soluble salts.…”

“…Nanofertilizers are already used in crop production in China, but reported only for urea (Huang et al 2015), and should therefore be extended to micronutrients. Nanopackaging can be leveraged to reduce nutrient losses to the environment (Huang et al 2015;Liu and Lal 2015), which is characteristic of nutrients administered as soluble salts. Moreover, by providing alternative uptake pathways through the internalization of intact particles, ionic nutrient competition could be circumvented during uptake from shared pathways.…”

Preparation and Foliar Application of Oligochitosan - Nanosilica on the Enhancement of Soybean Seed Yield

“…Nanomaterials hold great promise of improved plant disease resistance, controlled release of agro-chemicals, enhanced plant growth, etc [12]. According to Taha (2016), nanomaterials can be used as a magical tool for enhancing growth and improvement of agricultural production [13].…”

Antibacterial effect of biosynthesized silver nanoparticles in Pacific white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei (Boone) infected with necrotizing hepatopancreatitis bacterium (NHP B)

“…Nanotechnology, the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale, has been focused on the manufacturing industry, but it has also been applied in medicine as agents for in vitro detection, in vivo diagnostics, multimodal imagining, chemotherapy, phototherapy, and immunotherapy (Giasuddin et al, 2013;Lin, 2015). Moreover, in agriculture activities it has been pointed out that nanometric biological pesticides poses higher efficiency and present lower cost than regular pesticides, offering a reliable choice (Huang et al, 2015). On the other hand, in the application of nanosciences in aquaculture production Khalafalla et al (2011) reported that selenium nanoparticles could improve reproduction, growth, and survival of Oreochromis niloticus.…”

“…Some nanoparticles may have antibacterial activity, and affect many species of bacteria (Lu et al, 2013;Huang et al, 2015;Bakare et al, 2016). For example, copper nanoparticles have been proved as promising antibacterial agents against the intestinal bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and Pseudomonas fluorescens in silver and grass carp (Huang et al, 2015), and Kim et al (2007) reported that the use of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) inhibited the growth of yeast, Escherichia coli (Escherich), and Staphylococcus aureus (Rosenbach).…”