Abstract
Nanotechnology has gained importance over conventional technologies to enhance crop yield and environmental sustainability. In agricultural soil, cadmium (Cd) contamination has been a serious issue, impacting food security and quality and caused serious human health and environmental problems. Nanoparticles (NPs) have large surface area and high adsorption capacity, due to which they are efficiently used to remediate Cd-contaminated agricultural soils. The aims to conduct this experiment were to evaluate the effects of iron (Fe), silicon (Si) and zinc (Zn) NPs on the growth, physiology, and accumulation of Cd in various parts of plants. Soil in bulk was collected and spiked with different Cd levels (0, 5, 10, 20 mg kg-1), and NPs @ 60 mg kg-1 of soil were applied at the time of wheat sowing. Plants showed significant increase in shoot length and grain yield with the NPs application compared to control (no NPs application). The results illustrated that NPs have a positive effect on stomatal conductance, transpiration rate, photosynthetic rate compared to control. The Cd concentration in roots, shoot and grains were reduced by 36%, 50% and 69% with the application of NPs. However, this reduction was more pronounced at 5 mg kg-1 Cd with Fe-NPs followed by Zn-NPS and Si-NPs. Overall, it was concluded that NPs play an important role in the enhancement of plant biomass, increase in nutrients availability, and decreasing the Cd accumulation in different plant parts.