ABSTRACT
The dawn of nanotechnology interventions in agriculture has provided tremendous research and development impetus for development of nanofertilizers (NFs). Nanonutrient fertilizers are the preparations of particulate elements formulated on a nanoscale, or their suspensions/emulsions comprising nutrient element(s) and/or compound(s) in nanometric dimensions. These novel fertilizers possess immense potential to address the leading issues and pitfalls of the conventional fertilizers. However, lack of appropriate know-how to scale-up synthetic approaches of NFs at industrial and economically feasible scales, and the absence of pragmatic protocols to effectively assess the fate, dynamics, and impact of nanoscale nutrients in an open and dynamic system, further jeopardize their popularization and acceptance among the endusers. This manuscript aims to provide an overview on application potentials of different types of nanonutrient elements for improving plant nutrition, assorted benefits in the form of improved quality, for producing nano-enabled mineral biofortification and biotic/abiotic stress tolerance. The fate and dynamics on application, environmental prudence and skeptical bottlenecks for their widespread usage have also been highlighted.
