Solanum tuberosum (potato plant) vegetable crop is used worldwide in various industries like food & beverage industries and pharmaceutical industries. Its potential improved agricultural production can be helpful to combat the global hunger index of many underdeveloped and developing countries. But production is getting hampered due to various reasons such as post-harvest losses, early ripening and moreover because of few bacterial and fungal diseases such Bacterial wilt, Septoria leaf spot, Late blight, Early blight, Common scab, Black scurf/ canker caused by Clavibacter michiganensis. Currently there is a growing interest in the study of nano dispersions due to its bioavailability and biocompatibility that found to report which destabilized the lipid membrane of the pathogenic microbes due to their potent antimicrobial activity. As well as, their nano sized droplets will likely increase transport efficiency of any kind of loaded chemical or biological molecules to the targeted sites which also imparted antimicrobial resistance to crop plant especially potato plants. Managing the plant pathogenesis through various green and sustainable herbal nanopreparations can be observed satisfactory for the environmental concerns and cost effectiveness especially for autumn winter tomato which face the decrease in production either early flowing and fruiting period or post-harvest loss due to attack of fungal and bacterial pathogens.

Keywords: Solanum tuberosum, potato plant, vegetable crop plant, immunity booster, nano suspensions

Solanum tuberosum (potato plant) vegetable crop has become one of the most popular crop plant globally and it is also an economical food as major source of human diet.^1,2 Potatoes are enriched with good amount of starch, ascorbic acid and vitamin B which used in various wood, textile, paper and pharmaceutical industries as bioactive binder and bioactive agents.^3,4 Vast growing interests have been proposed earlier for their implementation of innovative nanoscience‐mediated technologies to develop nano formulations. Nano dispersions are nano sized non-toxic lipid droplets whose permeation is found to be reported faster in biological surfaces due to their considerable volatility due to having surfactant treated bound lipids.⁵ Field study was conducted in red & lateritic soil of Regional Research Station, Jhargram, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, West Bengal (India) to evaluate the growth response of potato crop against foliar application of macro and micronutrients. Foliar application of mixture of Zn, B, Fe, Mn and NPK, T8-Control was sprayed with NPK (19:19:19) that resulted in highest potato tuber yield when compared with control field yield.⁶ It is proposed for delivery systems for various essential nutrients, required nutraceuticals, antioxidants, antimicrobial ingredients in foods supplements, imparting colors and enhancing flavors along with improved quality, safety and nutritional profile.⁷ Nanosized antibacterial plant growth promoting thymol containing nanoemulsion was also formulated by using Quillaja saponin, a glycoside surfactant of Quillaja tree.⁸ A green approach was used to prepare iron oxide and manganese dioxide nanoparticles by using Beta vulgaris leaf extract which was proposed to be used as nano fertilizer to study In-vitro micro tuberization of potato. This studied interaction of the used nanoparticles with the nodal explants was led to significantly induce early tuber induction and tuber growth. Molecular analysis of potato tissues was also done that confirmed the enhanced expression of primary tuber inducing genes; Calcium-Dependent Protein Kinases (StCDPK); Calmodulin (StCaM1); and Lipoxygenase (StLOX) enzyme activity. Hence, this discrete study was revealed that use metal-oxide based nanoparticles as nano fertilizer led to increase potato microtuber production.⁹ Repeated and regular exposure of chemical bactericides has led to ill effects, on exposed plant like residual toxicity and bacterial pathogen resistance and also caused environmental pollution as well. Management of plant pathogenesis through bactericides is the only satisfactory cost effective and sustainable solution. Nano fertilizers were found to have sustainable potential to fulfill to improve potato crop plant by increasing plant nutrition requirements. The proposed trials were conducted on standing potato crop plant by applying 2 sprays of nano-nitrogen in standing crops gave that resulted in higher yields than FFP.¹⁰

Varius findings in last decades have been proposed to produce biological agents to replace chemical based bactericides which were used to reduce plant pathogenesis. The antibacterial activity of prepared thymol nanoemulsion (0.01–0.06%, v/v) was studied by growth inhibition analysis that confirmed antibacterial efficacy against Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. cyamopsidis (18–0.1 log CFU/ml). It was found that foliar spray of the different concentration of thymol nanoemulsion (0.01–0.06%, v/v) improved the percent efficiency of disease control of cluster beans up to 95% by reducing disease intensity of bacterial blight. An antimicrobial plant based nanoemulsion was formulated for plant growth that was prepared by using thymol, an essential oil component of named Quillaja saponin; type of glycoside surfactant of Quillaja tree.^11–13 The fermentation broth of P. elgii JCK-5075, at 5-fold dilution, effectively suppressed the development of tomato bacterial wilt, Kimchi cabbage soft rot, and red pepper bacterial leaf spot in pot experiments with control values of 81, 84, and 67%, respectively. PGP-A and C, at 200 μg/ml, were also found to markedly reduce the development of Kimchi cabbage bacterial soft rot by 75% and tomato bacterial wilt by 83%, respectively, and their disease control efficacy was comparable to that of oxolinic acid with control values of 81 and 85%, respectively. Additionally, the antibacterial activity of PGP-C was found to be directly correlated with membrane damage mechanisms. These results indicates that P. elgii JCK-5075 producing PGPs could be used as a biocontrol agent for the control of plant bacterial diseases. This is the first report on the in vitro and in vivo antibacterial activity of PGPs against bacterial plant pathogens. Bacterial soft rot is a disease complex caused by multiple genera of gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, with Dickeya and Pectobacterium being the most widely studied soft-rot bacterial pathogens. In addition to soft rot, these bacteria also cause blackleg of potato, foot rot of rice, and bleeding canker of pear.^13,14 Pheroid nutrient delivery method was developed with nanostructured FePO₄ to synthesize novel Fe foliar fertilizers that were used for foliarly application on fieldcrop soybeans in Northern Cape (South Africa) to study their impact on seed nutrient composition and production yield.^14,15 Various studies have been listed out in given table (Table 1) which were proposed earlier to study applications of synthesized metallo-nano-biofortifications to improve crop/vegetable plants production index including agricultural economics index.^16–22

Green synthesis of non-toxic nanoparticles with good crystallinity, improved phase selectivity, high percent of chemical purity and excellent homogeneity in particle size distribution with potent agglomeration that must be first choice for biochemists and bioengineers. Improved quality of magnesium oxide (MgO) nanoparticles have been proposed to study for applications of nanoparticles in various environmental remediation processes which considered for betterment of human kind.^23,24 In last decades, copper oxide based nanoparticles was used to improve crop plant quality followed with conservation to study their role in improving seedlings and plant growth.²⁵ Agricultural soil was found to improve by nanoparticles-produced by green methods that used as agro-fertilizers for nano-bio fortification. So that, it led to modification in gene expression to improve antioxidant defence systems to utilize soil nutrients efficiently by decreasing environmental stress for better yield of vegetable crop plants.^26–28 A comparative study was proposed to study foliar application of NPK nano fertilizers at recommended level ranging from 50% or 25% that was showed higher values of economic yield (23.59-ton ha−1) and starch concentration rate of 79.62%, NPK nutrient use efficiency (67.74, 278.92, 118.54 kg potato/kg nutrient), harvest index (59.24%). It has been observed that foliar application of 50% of NPK nano fertilizers was found to be the most economical treatment that gave highest potato yield by improving quality along with achieving good and acceptable profit with respect to its cost ratio of potato production.²⁹ The increase in potato yield production and quality attributes in foliar nano fertilizer applied treatments might be due to nano-NPK promotes plant to absorb water and nutrients, yet improved photosynthesis, where nano-NPK are considered the biological pump for plants to absorb water and nutrients increasing harvest index which resulted in increased biomass and yield production.³⁰ Foliar application of NPK nano fertilizers was proposed to enhance Egyptian potato yield production and its quality that further followed by decreasing the cost of fertilization and environmental hazards.³¹ Hence, the use of nano fertilizers is found to be more potent and sustainable alternatives over conventional chemical fertilizers. These degradable nano-polymer based fertilizers were showed slow and more efficient targeted release as per crop requirements during plant growth cycle/phase to confirm respective fertilizer use efficiency.³²

The antifungal and antimicrobial activity of nano dispersion/nanoemulsion is considerably to have potential to deliver loaded chemical or biological components peptides which are prone to enzymatic hydrolysis and other expected oxidation. Earlier, various prepared nano formulations are found to be non-toxic and biodegradable in contrary to metals/nanoparticles that will be further useful for achieving effective delivery system for antimicrobial activity to inhibit the growth of microbial strains in controlled manner.^33,34 The major limiting factors in various vegetable crop plant production are biotic stresses due to infection caused by various microbes including nematodes, viroids and pests including abiotic stress which makes agricultural production uneconomical due to loss in pre-harvest period.¹⁵ Therefore, suitable management is needed to be introduced for controlling various microbial pathogenesis of potato crop plant through effective integrated and sustainable approach using nano formulation can be cost effective and safe alternative to combat various fungal and bacterial diseases. So, many biophysiochemical parameters could might be proposed to study the regulating uptake, translocation and distribution of sustainable and cost effective nanoparticles in Solanum tuberosum (potato plant) by fortification process which includes mode of use like seed priming, root and foliar. This would be remarkable pin-point to improve potato plant crop production via studying biotic an abiotic plant metabolic interactions with considered environmental factors like soil microbiome, soil hydration, soil basic nutrient composition and soil porosity.^9,29

I would like to express my cordial appreciation to Amity University Uttar Pradesh, Noida (India).

The author declares that there are no conflicts of interest.

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