Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Several applications of nanobiotechnology in agriculture, food, and animal
sciences have been proposed, including new tools for disease detection, enhancing
the ability of plants to absorb nutrients, combat crop diseases, and effective systems
for food processing, packaging, and storage (Azeredo
2009
; Chen and Yada
2011
;
Kah and Hofmann
2014
). Thus, nanotechnology may have many applications in all
stages of production, processing, storage, packaging, and transport of agricultural
products. Environmental benefits may be also expected with the use of nanotech-
nology in agriculture. Nanoparticles can offer the opportunity of more efficient and
safe administration of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers by controlling precisely
when and where they are released (P´rez-de-Luque and Rubiales
2009
; Mousavi
and Rezaei
2011
). Smart sensors and smart delivery systems will help agriculture
industry to combat plant pathogens, allowing lower doses to be used.
Considering the elevated loses caused by phytopathogens in crop production, the
potential benefits of nanostructures to delivery of antimicrobials should be truly
considered. Despite many advances in nanostructured antimicrobial delivery have
been achieved in medicine and pharmaceutical sciences, applications in agriculture
started and should result a great impact on microbial control in the near future. The
most important nanostructures as hopeful tools for antimicrobial delivery systems
in agricultural and food applications are discussed in this chapter.
6.2 Microbial Spoilage of Crops and Foods
Worldwide postharvest losses have been estimated at 50 %, and a large amount of
such losses is related to fungal and bacterial infections. The most important factors
that make plant products more susceptible to spoiling are the high water content in
fruit and vegetables that allows pathogens to propagate more easily and wounding
of such products, mainly during harvesting and transport, providing easier oppor-
tunity for microbial contamination (Spadaro and Gullino
2004
; Saranraj and Geetha
2012
). Food crops are attacked by numerous pests and diseases around the world,
most of them are related to pathogenic fungal diseases. Filamentous fungi are
robust organisms capable of growing on all kinds of foods, including cereals,
vegetables, and fruits. They are important spoilage organisms in foods causing
significant losses in the industry. Fungi are ubiquitous biological agents that are
able to colonize different foods because of their potential to synthesize an assort-
ment of hydrolytic enzymes. They cause numerous crop diseases, which are
responsible for huge economic losses (Magro et al.
2006
; Clark et al.
2012
).
Fruits and vegetables are highly susceptible to fungal spoilage, both in the field
and during postharvest storage. Fungal growth on fresh fruits and vegetables is
responsible for food spoilage and numerous plant diseases. Significant genera
comprise
Alternaria
,
Botrytis
,
Fusarium
,
Geotrichum
,
Penicillium
,
Pythium
,
Phytophthora
,
Rhizoctonia
, and
Sclerotinia
spp. (Spadaro and Gullino
2004
). The
vine plant and grapes may be affected by a series of diseases of which the most well
known are grey rot (
Botrytis cinerea
), downy mildew (
Plasmopara viticola
), and
