**Abstract**

The growth of agricultural sectors can be maintained by increasing crop productivity through soil, water, and nutrient management. The most important management practice is nutrient management, which is supported by the effective use of nano-technology, especially nano-fertilizers. It is well known that nanofertilizers are nutrient carriers of nano dimensions ranging from 30 to 40 nm (10<sup>9</sup> m or one-billionth of a meter). Due to their high surface area, they can hold abundant nutrients ions and release them slowly and steadily, commensurate with crop demand. Nano-fertilizers are easily uptaken and assimilated by the plants because of their ease of solubility, stability, controlled release in time, and easy mode of delivery and disposal. Due to nano fertilizers characteristics, different commercial products are available in the market, namely *Nanogro*, *Geohumus*, *NanoGreen*, and *Lithovit High Yield fertilizer*, which can be demonstrated among the farmers for increasing agricultural performance through soil and nutrient management. Besides, nano-fertilizer has good criteria like disease resistance properties. Nanoparticles of ZnO, CuO, and MgO can kill different fungal infections of crop plants. Though nano-fertilizers can be beneficial for improving agricultural performance, it has a detrimental effect on soil microflora, fauna, animals, and humans. It is associated with several diseases or hazards like high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke, arrhythmia, heart disease, etc. Nano-fertilizer also improves the yield of several field crops like pearl millet, wheat, pomegranate, onion, tomato, soybean, and vegetable crops like spinach and cucumber. Nano fertilizers also have sound capabilities to find the solution against the issues arising in modern agriculture due to conventional fertilizer application. Thus, nano-fertilizer has the potential to improve the yield of several field crops.

**Keywords:** nano-fertilizers, commercial products, fungal infection, disease, disease resistance, surface area, cereal and vegetables, solubility, stability and controlled release

#### **1. Introduction**

Increasing population growth and shortage of available land & water resources are significant concerns for food-saving agriculture. Potential agricultural growth can be achieved through productivity improvement through soil, water, and nutrients

management, assisted by the successful use of new technologies such as nanofertilizers. Nano-fertilizers are those preparations with nano-dimensional nutrient carriers ranging from 30 and 40 nm (10<sup>9</sup> m or one billionth of a meter). They can retain sufficient nutrient ions because of their large specific surface area and slowly or gradually release them in exact amounts meeting crop requirements [1]. Compared with bulk fertilizers, it has a high specific surface area, small size, and reactivity of nano-fertilizers can increase the diffusion, solubility, and nutrient availability to plants and boost agricultural productivity. Using fertilizer carriers for the construction of smart fertilizers, nano-fertilizer have presented the feasibility of exploring nano-structured materials as new facilities to increase the performance of nutrient usage and minimize environmental degradation. Micronutrients such as iron, manganese, zinc, and copper are becoming factors that improve yield and are primarily responsible for making the standard nutritional quality of food items. Once applied to the soils, they respond quickly, produce chemical precipitates, soils' organo-mineral matrix, and react with clay colloids. Micro-nutrients are substantially lost due to leaching in high rainfall regions. Thereby, the efficiency of micronutrient usage (MUE) is <5%. Micronutrient-based nano-fertilizers can increase the accessibility of particular micronutrients to crops and improve agricultural productivity [2]. Since the production and implementation of nano-fertilizers are still at an early stage, certain specific reports are published on the effects and benefits of applying micronutrient-based nano-fertilizers in the field. Any discovery in new innovative technologies to enhance agricultural productivity and the supply of nutrients might be a landmark in nano-technology research and at the beginning of the next Green Revolution. So, the main objectives of this study are


Indiscriminate and massive application of fertilizers leads to the formation of a non-porous layer between the soil particles, which has a negative effect on the agricultural soil and leads to a rise in the groundwater level and salinity as well and ultimately it causes the death of the roots of the field crops by reducing the absorption of nutrient by the plants that are essential in the crop nutrition. But nano-fertilizers cut the barriers of that type of problem in agriculture [3].

Recently, our modern agriculture has been habituated by the use of high rates of chemical fertilizer. For example, the global production of chemical fertilizer is about 188.2 Mt. in 2019. It is also expected that chemical fertilizer consumption can also increase by double to feed the 9.6 billion population by 2050. Besides, applications of conventional fertilizers have low nutrient use efficiency, a high risk of environmental pollution, and a possible risk of breaking the food chain by

*Enhancing the Productivity of Field Crops through Nano-Fertilizer DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101146*

destroying the ecosystem [4]. So, sustainable agriculture is a new approach for the solution of recent problems. So, implementing new innovative techniques like nano-fertilizers into the farmers field may solve fertilizer application problems. That's why nano-fertilizers are gaining importance day to day to agriculture. It has several advantages, like it releases nutrients according to plant requirements. It may replace several pesticides as it has disease-resistant properties (ZnO, MgO, and CuO-based nano fertilizers).

We know that chemical fertilizers release the nutrients in 4–10 days, whereas nano-fertilizer releases their nutrients in 40–50 days; as a result, nitrogenous fertilizer from the conventional system are lost rapidly from the field through volatilization, leaching, and run-off. But we can minimize this problem by applying nano-fertilizer and improving N's nutrient use efficiency in the field [4].
