Context- The approval of nano DAP (di-ammonium phosphate) fertilizer, as stated by India’s Prime Minister, is a significant step toward making farming easier.
Key Highlights of Nano- DAP
- Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO), a fertilizer cooperative that introduced nano liquid urea in 2021, has announced that the government has granted permission for the market launch of its nano DAP fertilizer.
Nano Urea
- Nano Urea is a liquid nutrient that is used as an alternative to urea to deliver nitrogen to plants.
- It can eliminate the need for traditional urea by at least 50% and is intended to do so. In a 500 mL compartment, it contains 40,000 mg/L of nitrogen, which is like the nitrogen supplement effect of one pack of customary urea.
Composition
- Packed urea contains 46% nitrogen chemically, so a 45 kg bag contains about 20 kg of nitrogen.
- Nano Urea only has 4% nitrogen (or about 20 gm) in its 500 mL bottles.
- IFFCO’s Nano Urea gives nitrogen, a fundamental component for plant improvement, as granules multiple times better than a piece of paper.
- At this “nanoscale,” which is about a billionth of a meter, materials behave differently than in the visible world.
- Plants expect nitrogen to create protein, and they get basically every last bit of it from soil microbes that stay in the roots and can change over nitrogen from air or nitrogen from intensifies like urea into a structure that plants can utilize without any problem.
- When applied to the leaves, the nanoparticle form of urea stimulates a variety of enzymes that assist plants in metabolizing nitrogen, such as nitrase and nitrite reductase, in contrast to the coarse particles that farmers typically toss onto the soil during sowing.
Significances of Nano Urea
- Nano urea is an innovative agricultural input that supplies nitrogen to plants and is based on nanotechnology.
- It’s a good choice for farmers who want to use smart agriculture to fight climate change.
- It limits the natural impression by lessening the deficiency of supplements from horticulture fields through filtering and vaporous discharges used to cause ecological contamination and environmental change.
- Nano Urea is able to easily pass through the pores in the cell wall and leaf stomata.
- It eliminates the need for conventional urea by at least 50%.
- There is less consumption and more output. One bag of urea and one bottle of Nano Urea (500 mL) are equally effective.
- Products that are good for the environment can improve the quality of the air, water, and soil, which helps address global warming and achieve the UN SDGs.
- It is less expensive than regular urea.
- Farmers’ income rises as input costs decrease.
- It increases the nutritional value of the food by boosting crop productivity and soil health.
Concerns
- Urea already has the lowest concentration and is soluble in water upon absorption.
- It is unclear how even nanoparticles of a smaller size can improve nitrogen uptake efficiency.
- Additionally, the product’s ability to reduce farmers’ reliance on urea is unknown to scientists.
- Conventional urea must be used because crop development begins with the requirement for basal nitrogen from urea.
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