Drawing on his grandparents’ farming experiences, the author explains how nanotechnology is being applied to pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, and more, and highlights how these technologies are making agriculture more efficient and environmentally friendly.
My grandparents in the countryside have been farming for a long time. As a child, I spent most of my time in the countryside, and I saw them working very hard, driving tractors, tillers, and other farm machinery nonstop, and it seemed like a lot of hard work. So I always thought from a young age: Why can’t agriculture improve? With technology advancing so rapidly in other fields, why is it so slow?” But I was wrong. I didn’t realize it, but agriculture was much more advanced than I thought. What I’m about to explain is the agricultural technology related to nanotechnology, among many other advances.
Before we talk about nanotechnology agriculture, we need to know what nanotechnology is. Nanotechnology is a technology that has been around for a long time, and its practical applications are so wide that nowadays it“s hard to find a field that doesn”t involve nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is the science and technology of manipulating, analyzing, and controlling matter in the nanometer size range to create materials, devices, and systems with new or improved physical, chemical, or biological properties. Simply put, it’s science and technology at the tiniest scale. Thanks to this broad practical scope and simple definition, few people are unfamiliar with nanotechnology. However, not many people realize that nanotechnology is used in agriculture.
There are quite a few advances in agricultural technology that have been made with nanotechnology. The first is nano-pesticides. Normally, about 90% of pesticides are lost into the atmosphere when sprayed, which is a major source of environmental pollution as well as cost for farmers. However, nanopesticides can be used to minimize the amount of pesticides used, which can solve this problem. So how are nanopesticides different from conventional pesticides? First of all, the way they work is different. What makes nanopesticides special are the “nanodevices” that they contain. Nanodevices are responsible for delivering substances to specific plant tissues in the process of fertilization and pest prevention. However, with conventional devices, the active substance can be damaged by external factors or the plant itself, or can be lost into the soil. To prevent this, ‘nanoencapsulation technology’ exists. The outer shell of a nanocapsule is made up of polymers, lipids, viral capsids, nanoclays, etc. and contains the active ingredient that protects the plant from pests. The shell protects the active ingredient until it is released, and it also serves to increase the solubility of the compound and its penetration into plant tissue. However, protection is not the only role of the coat. Depending on the nature of the shell, the active ingredient can be released slowly, gradually, or all at once in response to certain environmental changes. The nanoparticles are also coated with carbon, which allows them to fulfill multiple roles. This makes the nanoparticles easy to detect, and they can be magnetized to help plants absorb nutrients more quickly. However, this technology does have its drawbacks. Currently, nanodevices are very expensive. This makes it economically inefficient because it requires a large amount of nanomaterials to be effective in agriculture, but mass production could solve this problem in the future.
The second is nanoherbicides. The main advantage of nanoherbicides is that they can remove weeds in an environmentally friendly way without leaving toxic residues in the soil or environment. The principle is as follows. First, the targeted herbicide nanocapsules target specific receptors on the roots of the weeds they’re aimed at and penetrate the roots. The nutrients stored inside the weed are then transferred to the part of the plant where glycolysis is inhibited, causing the weed to die from lack of nutrients. Because the nanoparticles are small, they can bind to soil particles and suppress weed seeds that have developed resistance to conventional herbicides. Combined with nano-smart delivery systems, they can also reduce the amount of herbicide used. For example, carboxymethylcellulose nanoparticles can remove up to 88% of the toxicity of the herbicide atrazine.
The third category is nanofertilizers and growth regulators. In agriculture, convenience is key. An ideal fertilizer would release the right amount of nutrients continuously once applied to the ground. Nanomaterials make this possible. Coating fertilizer particles with nanomembranes allows them to release nutrients slowly and steadily. For example, zeolites can be used. Zeolites occur in nature and can also be produced industrially. They have a honeycomb-like, multi-layered crystal structure and can contain slow-dissolving components, including nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, and calcium. This structure can be used to control the release of fertilizers.
As you can see, agricultural technology has evolved considerably without us realizing it. It may come as a surprise to many to see the use of advanced technology in what used to be considered a labor-intensive industry, albeit at a slower pace than other sectors. But this progress shouldn’t stop there. Agriculture plays such a fundamental role in our lives that it deserves more attention and technological development. We should pay more attention to agriculture and continue to develop agricultural technology.
