Rakhi Mahto, Priyanka Rani, Reshu Bhardwaj, Rajesh Kumar Singh and Saroj Kumar Prasad
Abstract
Abiotic stress alters the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum which adversely affects the crop productivityand plant growth. Abiotic stress is due to both natural as well as anthropogenic activities the major causefor the reduction in crop yields worldwide. There is urgent need of environment friendly technology toovercome these stresses and improve the resource use efficiency and agricultural sustainability.Nanomaterials are the magic bullets having capability to mitigate the constraints associated with abioticand biotic stress. Nanoparticles can penetrate specific cellular locations because of their extreme small sizeand acquired some peculiar properties play significant role in the protection of plants against various abioticstresses. NMs protects the plants against oxidative stress as they mimic the role of antioxidative enzymessuch as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and peroxidase (POX) under adverse environmentalconditions such as drought, salinity, water logging, extreme temperature, UV-radiation, etc.