Chitosan-based nanoconjugates: A promising solution for enhancing crops drought-stress resilience and sustainable yield in the face of climate change

Climate change poses significant challenges to agriculture, impacting crop production through various means such as rising drought, temperatures, altered rainfall patterns, extreme weather events, and changing pest dynamics. These changes pose a threat to global food security and livelihoods due to reduced yields, lower crop quality, and increased vulnerability to pests and diseases. To safeguard crops and build resilience, addressing climate change and adopting sustainable agricultural practices is crucial for sustainable productivity. The review highlights the chitosan based nanoconjugates potential as a tool to revolutionize agricultural practices and help to address the challenges posed by climate change on crop production and food security. Environmental stresses trigger a range of responses in plants, including changes to growth rate, productivity, cellular metabolism, and gene expression alterations. One of the paramount impacts of climate change on plants is water deficit stress, which disrupts water relations, causes metabolic disturbances, generates reactive oxygen species, and leads to crop damage. To counteract these adverse effects, chitosan, a naturally occurring polymer emerged as a promising biostimulator and elicitor in agriculture. Its non-toxic, biodegradable, and biocompatible properties make it well-suited for various applications. Chitosan enhances physiological responses in plants and helps mitigate the negative impacts of abiotic stresses by activating stress transduction pathways. Chitosan nanoconjugates, formed by integrating chitosan with metallic nanoparticles, exhibit modified structural and functional properties, making them more effective in mitigating stress-related effects in plants. Their intelligent and slow delivery mechanisms contribute to their success in enhancing plant growth and development sustainably. Additionally, the encapsulation of metals or elements in chitosan reduces toxicity, enables slow-release properties, and ensures long-lasting effects. Nanoconjugates have been successfully utilized for priming agricultural and horticultural crops to enhance their tolerance to abiotic stress and promote sustainable yield improvement. Given their promising results, the use of nanoconjugates for priming agricultural crops and promoting sustainable yield improvement warrants continued exploration and development in the field of agricultural nanotechnology.