1 XVII th World Congress of the International Commission of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering (CIGR) Hosted by the Canadian Society for Bioengineering (CSBE/SCGAB) Québec City, Canada June 13-17, 2010 EFFECT OF SILVER NANOPARTICLES ON SEED PROTECTION IN DIFFERENT SOILS N. KARIMI 1 , S. MINAEI 2 , A.R. SHAHVERDI 3 , M. ALMASSI 4 1 for_navid@yahoo.com N. KARIMI, Science and Research Campus Islamic Azad University-Member of Young Researcher Club, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture Mechanization, Tehran, Iran, 2 S. MINAEI, Tarbiat Modares University, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Agricultural Machinery, Tehran, Iran, minaee7@yahoo.com 3 A.R. SHAHVERDI, Department of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical sciences, Tehran, Iran, shahverd@sina.tums.ac.ir 4 M. ALMASSI, morteza.almassi@gmail.com CSBE101351 – Presented at Nanotechnologies Applied to Biosystems Engineering and the Environment Symposium ABSTRACT To investigate the possibility of using silver nanoparticles for protection of a living organism, wheat seeds were coated with these particles and planted. If germination of seeds is not affected by this new nano-treatment, the method can be used on a wide range of common treatment for seed protection. The effect of treatment on seeds with this particle protection against fungi was compared with seeds treated with a conventional preplanting fungicide (Carboxitiram). Being that soil is the most common medium for plant growth in agriculture, this can play a major role in plants life and their relationships with other factors in the field. This study looks at the effects of different soil conditions on pre-treatment. The effect on soils with different levels of nutrient, pH and humidity were investigated. Results showed that soil conditions have little affect on seed protection with silver nanoparticles against fungi, and protection is completely independent of soil conditions. Results showed that silver nanoparticles do not reduce seed germination. In other words, seed viability is not significantly affected. Moreover, seed protection cost with Silver nanoparticles and Carboxitiram was not significantly different. This effect is completely independent of soil conditions regardless of levels of nutrients, pH and humidity. Keywords: Silver Nano Particles, Seed Treating, Preplanting Fungicide. INTRODUCTION: Nanotechnology has the potential to revolutionize the scientific world by allowing scientists to manipulate matter at atomic or molecular scale using physics, engineering, chemistry and biology [1]. Nanotechnology is a broad and interdisciplinary area of research and development activity that has been growing at a rapid pace worldwide in the past few years [2]. In agriculture, using many monitoring and control systems already in place, nanotechnology devices for CEA providing "scouting" capabilities could tremendously improve the grower's ability to determine the best time of harvest for the crop, the vitality of crop, and food security issues, such as microbial or chemical contamination [3]. Recently nanotechnology is used in different agricultural fields like precision farming, smart delivery systems, food industry, packaging, food safety, food processing, etc [4],[5],[6].