Tomatoes are one of the sources of anti-oxidants that cure many severe illnesses such as cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease.
A study conducted by British researchers engineered tomatoes that contain anti-oxidants that can be gained only if fifty bottles of red wine are consumed. Researchers are using tomatoes again as the subject of their experiment recently and found that tomatoes can produce more antioxidant nutrients when zinc oxide and titanium dioxide nanoparticles are applied as fertilizer.
Pratim Biswas, professor and chair in the department of energy, environmental and chemical engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis stated, "When a plant grows, it signals the soil that it needs nutrients.
The nutrient it needs is not in a form that the plant can take right away, so it secretes enzymes, which react with the soil and trigger bacterial microbes to turn the nutrients into a form that the plant can use. We're trying to aid this pathway by adding nanoparticles."
The experiment was conducted by creating an aerosol spray made out of the nanoparticles and was directly applied to the tomatoes' leaves. The researchers found the spray to produce more positive effects to the leaves in comparison with common nanoparticles soil fertilizer. "We found that our aerosol technique resulted in much greater uptake of nutrients by the plant in comparison to application of the nanoparticles to soil.
A plant can only uptake about 20 percent of the nutrients applied through soil, with the remainder either forming stable complexes with soil constituents or being washed away with water, causing runoff. In both of the latter cases, the nutrients are unavailable to plants," explained Ramesh Raliya, research coauthor and postdoctoral researcher.
The results of the study show that plants sprayed by nanoparticles aerosol bore more fruits compared to those plant where spray was not used. Almost 82 percent increase in tomato growth was noted by the researchers.
Researchers also found that the lycopene level of the sprayed tomato group rises between 80 to 113 percent compared with the controlled group. Lycopene is a substance known to stimulate the antioxidant level of the body making it more equip to fight against fatal health illnesses.
