Crop disease control is crucial for the sustainable development of agriculture, with recent advances in nanotechnology offering a promising solution to this pressing problem. However, the efficacy of nanoparticle (NP) delivery methods has not been fully explored, and knowledge regarding the fate and mobility of NPs within trees is still largely unknown. In this study, we evaluate the efficiency of NP delivery methods and investigate the mobility and distribution of NPs with different surface coatings (citrate (Ct), polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), and gum Arabic (GA)) within Mexican lime citrus trees. In contrast to the limited delivery efficiency reported for foliar and root delivery methods, petiole feeding and trunk injection are able to deliver a large amount of NPs into trees, although petiole feeding takes much longer time than trunk injection (7 days vs 2 h in citrus trees). Once NPs enter plants, steric repulsive interactions between NPs and conducting tube surfaces are predicted to facilitate NP transport throughout the plant. Compared to PVP and Ct, GA is highly effective in inhibiting the aggregation of NPs in synthetic sap and enhancing the mobility of NPs in trees. Over a 7 day experimental period, the majority of the Ag recovered from trees (10 mL, 10 ppm GA-AgNP suspension) remain throughout the trunk (81.0% on average), with a considerable amount in the roots (11.7% on average), some in branches (4.4% on average), and a limited amount in leaves (2.9% on average). Furthermore, NP concentrations during injection and tree incubation time postinjection are found to impact the distribution of Ag in tree. We also present evidence for a transport pathway that allows NPs to move from the xylem to the phloem, which disperses the NPs throughout the plant architecture, including to the roots.
Keywords: citrus tree; nanoparticle delivery; nanoparticle distribution in tree; plant disease control; silver nanoparticles.