Hyderabad,  A team of material scientists and plant biologists from the University of Hyderabad (UoH) and International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI), have developed an industrially viable dry method to generate chemically stable nano-diammonium phosphate (n-DAP) fertiliser that is around 5,000 times smaller in size.

The development can potentially reduce the volumes of fertiliser usage, while increasing phosphate intake capacity of seedlings, a UoH release stated.

After developing it, the team, led by Dr Rahul Kumar, tested the nano fertiliser (n-DAP) as well as the conventional granular fertiliser (c-DAP), on tomato and wheat seedlings. The results demonstrated an extraordinary superiority of nano-DAP fertiliser over the conventional granular DAP (c-DAP).

In the lab-scale experiments, the reduced quantity of nano-DAP fertiliser input than c-DAP promoted the early seedlings growth and development in both crops.

One of the factors that contributed to the enhanced crop productivity during the green revolution and afterward is the application of chemical fertilisers such as Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium. However, with the excessive use of chemicals, soil quality has been adversely affected over the decades.

Since these resources are limited in availability, and also unevenly distributed globally, nano-fertilisers can make a huge difference in cutting down the volumes of fertilisers used.