EDTA-Coated Fe3O4 Nanoparticles: a Novel Biocompatible Fertilizer for Improving Agronomic Traits of Sunflower (Helianthus Annuus)

In  this study, a set of experiments were conducted  to  investigate  the influence  of  edta-grafted  iron  oxide  nanoparticles  exposure  on agronomic  traits  of  sunflower  (helianthus  annuus)  plants.  the experiment  was  implemented  by  applying  nano-fe3o4-edta  and fe-edta  fertilizers  applied  through  spray  or  soil  amendment.  a variety  of  parameters  including  aerial  organ  biomass,  number  of leaves,  plant  height,  chlorophyll  content  as  well  as  elemental quantities  of  the plants were  investigated. the  results demonstrated considerably  dominant  effect  of  nano-fe3o4-edta  fertilizer  on many of the studied factors. the dramatically increased fe content of plants (137% relative to the control) by using nano-fe-edta, makes this novel fertilizer a promising candidate  to obviate  iron deficiency problem  in  plants.  moreover,  it  was  clearly  observed  that  more pronounced positive effects is obtained through soil amendment than by  foliar  application  of  fertilizers  and  only  in  some  cases  such  as aerial organ biomasses and fe content, the foliar treatment has turned out to be more effective.