Abstract
Vegetables are crucial to human diet and health. To ensure sustainable vegetable production, regulatory measures are needed to enhance seed germination, plant growth, and resilience to extreme environmental conditions. Nanomaterials (NMs), owing to their high surface area, nanoscale dimensions, and unique photocatalytic properties, exhibit remarkable biological effects, such as promoting germination and growth, as well as improving stress resistance in crops, offering novel solutions to key challenges in vegetable cultivation. This review summarizes the absorption pathways of NMs in plants, specifically through the leaves and roots of vegetables. Their uptake and translocation occur via passive diffusion, active transport, and endocytosis, with key influencing factors including particle size, chemical composition, surface charge, and surface modifications. We further evaluate the advantages of nanofertilizers and nanopesticides, in vegetable production over their traditional counterparts, focusing on improvements in seed germination rates, seedling vigor, biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, and overall yield and quality. Through this review, we aim to offer comprehensive insights into the application of NMs in vegetable crop production.