Metal nanoparticles offer promising prospects in agriculture, enhancing plant growth and ensuring food security. Silver, gold, copper, and zinc nanoparticles possess unique properties making them attractive for plant applications. Understanding molecular interactions between metal nanoparticles and plants is crucial for unlocking their potential to boost crop productivity and sustainability. This review explores metal nanoparticles in agriculture, emphasizing the need to understand these interactions. By elucidating mechanisms, it highlights the potential for enhancing crop productivity, stress tolerance, and nutrient-use efficiency, contributing to sustainable agriculture and food security. Quantifying benefits and risks reveal significant advantages. Metal nanoparticles enhance crop productivity by 20% on average and reduce disease incidence by up to 50% when used as antimicrobial agents. They also reduce nutrient leaching by 30% and enhance soil carbon sequestration by 15%, but concerns about toxicity, adverse effects on non-target organisms, and nanoparticle accumulation in the food chain must be addressed. Metal nanoparticles influence cellular processes including sensing, signaling, transcription, translation, and post-translational modifications. They act as signaling molecules, activate stress-responsive genes, enhance defense mechanisms, and improve nutrient uptake. The review explores their catalytic role in nutrient management, disease control, precision agriculture, nano-fertilizers, and nano-remediation. A bibliometric analysis offers insights into the current research landscape, highlighting trends, gaps, and future directions. In conclusion, metal nanoparticles hold potential for revolutionizing agriculture, enhancing productivity, mitigating environmental stressors, and promoting sustainability. Addressing risks and gaps is crucial for their safe integration into agricultural practices.

Transitioning to safe, nonthermal, and edible strategies for maintaining fruit and vegetable (F&V) quality, reducing postharvest losses (up to 55% annually), and ensuring food security requires extensive research and innovation in postharvest technologies. This review aims to provide an updated understanding of edible coatings or films (ECF), focusing on their role in reducing F&V postharvest losses, based on data from the last 40 years retrieved from the Web of Science database. The global ECF research network is represented by publication trends, majorly researched F&V, key research areas, influential and emerging authors, and global research ranking. The role of ECF in preserving F&V quality has been assessed by examining critical quality parameters, including weight loss, total soluble solids, titratable acidity, ripening, softening, sensory and organoleptic characteristics, browning, chilling injury, and microbial safety. Furthermore, recent advancements in ECF formulations, including nanoscale ingredients and application methodologies, have been critically discussed. Sources, categorization, application strategies, mode of action, functional properties, sustainable development goals (SDGs), challenges, safety, legislations, and future perspectives in ECF research have also been discussed. The key findings indicate that China (20.34%) and the USA (9.94%) are the leading countries in ECF research. Studies have demonstrated ECF's potential in reducing F&V postharvest losses by maintaining quality parameters through advanced nanoscale compositions and methodologies. Notably, ECF research supports multiple SDG targets, including SDGs 2, 3, 8, 9, 12, 13, and 15. Future ECF research should explore 3D‐printed coatings, nonflavor‐altering components, and potential crosslinking agents to enhance F&V quality and reduce postharvest losses.

Organic fresh products are appreciated and are gaining a good reputation regarding human health and environmental concerns. Despite the fact that hydroponics are commonly used in vegetable production, growers are looking for sustainable cultivation systems. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the effect of using an organic-based nutrient solution (NS) derived from fish waste in a hydroponic system on the vegetative growth and production of lettuce compared to a conventional inorganic NS. Plant growth, yield, physiological and nutrient content parameters were determined. The results revealed that the overall growth and fresh biomass of the organic NS grown lettuce were relatively lower than those of the inorganic NS. Stomata density was significantly higher in inorganic grown lettuce compared to the organic one. However, the total chlorophyll, carotene, phenolic compounds, and flavonoid contents, as well as antioxidant activity were significantly higher in lettuce grown in organic NS compared to the inorganic one. Leaf nutrient content at harvest was significantly impacted by the type of used fertilizer. Based on these findings, in hydroponic system, organic liquid fertilizer derived from fish waste (as an alternative NS source) requires further improvements to achieve optimal growth and yield comparable to that of conventional inorganic NS.

Food bioactive packaging has received increasing attention from consumers and the food industry for its potential to reduce food waste and environmental issues. Several materials can be used to produce edible films/coats; however, bio-based, cost-effective, and sustainable coatings have gained a high reputation these days. For instance, Aloe vera gel (AV) is a promising bio-based material for edible coatings and films; therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the film-forming abilities of AV and Chitosan (CH) combination as a potential active food packaging material. The physicochemical and mechanical characteristics of formed films of various combinations were prepared at different concentrations, i.e., CH (0.5% w/v), AV (100%), CH:AV (75:25), and CH:AV (60:40). The results showed significant differences among all the prepared edible films wherein these differences were mainly on account of incorporating AV gel. The rheological and antioxidant properties of the formulations improved with the inclusion of AV gel. The films composed of CH:AV (60:40) positively affected the water solubility, thermal properties, and water vapour permeability of the edible films. The X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) results showed that the films composed of CH:AV, (60:40) were amorphous and had smooth morphology. Further, the edible film solutions were applied to fresh figs (Ficus carica) to investigate their role in preserving fruits during storage. A significant reduction in microbial growth was found in coated fruits after 28 days of cold storage. The films composed of CH and AV showed overall improved results compared to the CH (0.5%, w/v). Therefore, the used formulations (CH:AV, 60:40) can form a sustainable film that has the potential to be utilized for fresh product preservation to maintain its quality and shelf life.

Plants experience constant exposed to diverse abiotic stresses throughout their growth and development stages. Given the burgeoning world population, abiotic stresses pose significant challenges to food and nutritional security. These stresses are complex and influenced by both genetic networks and environmental factors, often resulting in significant crop losses, which can reach as high as fifty percent. To mitigate the effects of abiotic stresses on crops, various strategies rooted in crop improvement and genomics are being explored. In particular, the utilization of biostimulants, including bio-based compounds derived from plants and beneficial microbes, has garnered considerable attention. Biostimulants offer the potential to reduce reliance on artificial chemical agents while enhancing nutritional efficiency and promoting plant growth under abiotic stress condition. Commonly used biostimulants, which are friendly to ecology and human health, encompass inorganic substances (e.g., zinc oxide and silicon) and natural substances (e.g., seaweed extracts, humic substances, chitosan, exudates, and microbes). Notably, prioritizing environmentally friendly biostimulants is crucial to prevent issues such as soil degradation, air and water pollution. In recent years, several studies have explored the biological role of biostimulants in plant production, focusing particularly on their mechanisms of effectiveness in horticulture. In this context, we conducted a comprehensive review of the existing scientific literature to analyze the current status and future research directions concerning the use of various biostimulants, such as plant-based zinc oxide, silicon, selenium and aminobutyric acid, seaweed extracts, humic acids, and chitosan for enhancing abiotic stress tolerance in crop plants. Furthermore, we correlated the molecular modifications induced by these biostimulants with different physiological pathways and assessed their impact on plant performance in response to abiotic stresses, which can provide valuable insights.

Cellulose derivatives, as edible coating for fruits and vegetables, have been broadly applied due to their availability, stability, solubility, safety, and low price. Therefore, this study was conducted to (1) extract cellulose from the banana plant rachis, (2) convert it into carboxymethyl (CMC), and (3) use the produced CMC as an edible coating to retard senescence and prolong the storage life of strawberry fruit. Preparation of CMC was accomplished by an etherification process, utilizing sodium hydroxide and monochloroacetic acid (MCA), with ethanol as a supporting medium. Characterization of CMC was done by analyzing the spectra of FTIR, degree of substitution (DS), ash content, CMC yield, water and oil holding capacity, in addition to physical characteristics. A storage study with CMC as an edible coating was conducted to investigate its impact on the shelf life of stored strawberry fruits. High purity food-grade CMC was successfully produced. CMC showed a yield of 156.25% with a DS of 0.78, a water holding capacity of 11.24 g/g, and an oil holding capacity of 1.60 g/g. The resulted CMC was well suited for edible coating preparation and was used effectively to prolong the shelf life of stored strawberry fruits at 22 °C to 6 days and to 16 days for that stored at 4 °C. Weight loss, total soluble solids (TSS), decay percentage, pH, anthocyanin content, ascorbic acid content, firmness, and sensory characteristics of CMC coated strawberry fruit stored at 4 °C were better than those stored at 22 °C. Thus, CMC edible coating prepared from banana rachis could be recommended as a potential postharvest treatment to delay postharvest senescence and maintain the quality of ambient and cold stored fruits.