Chapter Nano-fertilizers for Balanced Crop Nutrition Kizhaeral S Subramanian, Angamuthu Manikandan, Muthiah Thirunavukkarasu, and Christopher Sharmila Rahale Abstract Fertilizers play a pivotal role in improving the productivity across the spectrum of crops The nutrient use efficiencies of conventional fertilizers hardly exceed 30–35 %, 18–20 %, and 35–40 % for N, P, and K which remained constant for the past several decades Nano-fertilizers intended to improve the nutrient use efficiencies by exploiting unique properties of nanoparticles The nano-fertilizers are synthesized by fortifying nutrients singly or in combinations onto the adsorbents with nano-dimension Both physical (top-down) and chemical (bottom-up) approaches are used to produce nanomaterials, and the targeted nutrients are loaded as it is for cationic nutrients (NH4+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+) and after surface modification for anionic nutrients (NO3À, PO42À, SO42À) Nano-fertilizers are known to release nutrients slowly and steadily for more than 30 days which may assist in improving the nutrient use efficiency without any associated ill-effects Since the nano-fertilizers are designed to deliver slowly over a long period of time, the loss of nutrients is substantially reduced vis-a-vis environmental safety The work done on nanofertilizers is very limited across the globe, but the reported literature clearly demonstrated that these customized fertilizers have a potential role to play in sustaining farm productivity This chapter focuses on synthesis and characteristics of macro- and micronutrient carrying nano-fertilizers and their application in achieving balanced crop nutrition 3.1 Introduction Fertilizers are inevitable factor in improving soil fertility and productivity of crops regardless of the nature of cropping sequence or environmental conditions It has been unequivocally demonstrated that one third of crop productivity is dictated by fertilizers besides influencing use efficiencies of other agri-inputs In the past four decades, nutrient use efficiency (NUE) of crops remained constant despite our K.S Subramanian (*) • A Manikandan • M Thirunavukkarasu • C.S Rahale Department of Nano Science & Technology, Directorate of Natural Resource Management, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore 641003, India e-mail: kssubra2001@rediffmail.com © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 M Rai et al (eds.), Nanotechnologies in Food and Agriculture, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-14024-7_3 69 70 K.S Subramanian et al relentless efforts The nutrients that are left in the soil may enter into the aquatic environment causing eutrophication In addition to the low nutrient efficiencies, agriculture in developing countries including India is facing a problem of low organic matter, imbalanced fertilization, and low fertilizer response that eventually caused crop yield stagnation (Biswas and Sharma 2008) The fertilizer response ratio in the irrigated areas of the country has decreased drastically It has been reported that 27 kg NPK haÀ1 was required to produce one ton of grain in 1970, while the same level of production can be achieved by 109 kg NPK haÀ1 in 2008 The optimal NPK fertilizer ratio of 4:2:1 is ideal for crop productivity, while the current ratio is being maintained at 6.7:3.1:1 in India due to the excessive use of nitrogenous fertilizers In order to achieve a target of 300 million tons of food grains and to feed the burgeoning population of 1.4 billion in the year 2025, the country will require 45 Mt of nutrients as against a current consumption level of 23 Mt The extent of multi-nutrient deficiencies is alarmingly increasing year by year which is closely associated with a crop loss of nearly 25–30 % The extent of nutrient deficiencies in the country is of the order of 90, 80, 50, 41, 49, and 33 % for N, P, K, S, Zn, and B, respectively Thus, from all sources, the country will be required to arrange for the supply of about 40–45 Mt of nutrients by 2025 (Subramanian and Tarafdar 2009) Nanotechnology deals with particles measuring a dimension of one-billionth of a meter or one-millionth of a millimeter This enables atom-by-atom manipulation, and thus processes or products evolved from nanotechnology are very precise and hardly possible to achieve through conventional methods This fascinating field of science has been exploited widely in engineering, health, electronics, and material sciences, and agricultural scientists have begun to use it as a tool to improve the input use efficiencies by integrating nanotechnological approaches in the conventional production system In this context, there would be greater importance of the information about how to increase the NUE of fertilizers by nanotechnology in the coming years In this chapter, current status of understanding of nano-fertilizer formulations and its associated effects on crop production systems has been narrated 3.1.1 Nano-fertilizers Nano-fertilizers are nutrient carriers of nano-dimensions ranging from 30 to 40 nm (10À9 m or one-billionth of a meter) and capable of holding bountiful of nutrient ions due to their high surface area and release it slowly and steadily that commensurate with crop demand Subramanian et al (2008) reported that nano-fertilizers and nanocomposites can be used to control the release of nutrients from the fertilizer granules so as to improve the NUE while preventing the nutrient ions from either getting fixed or lost in the environment Nano-fertilizers have high use efficiency and can be delivered in a timely manner to a rhizospheric target There are slow-release and super sorbent nitrogenous and phosphatic fertilizers Some Nano-fertilizers for Balanced Crop Nutrition 71 new-generation fertilizers have applications to crop production on long-duration human missions to space exploration (Lal 2008) Recently, Subramanian and Sharmila Rahale (2013) have monitored the nutrient release pattern of nanofertilizer formulations carrying fertilizer nitrogen The data have shown that the nano-clay-based fertilizer formulations (zeolite and montmorillonite with a dimension of 30–40 nm) are capable of releasing the nutrients particularly N for a longer period of time (>1,000 h) than conventional fertilizers ([...]... 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