Nanoparticles as Innovative Tools for Enhancing Abiotic Stress Tolerance and Supporting Integrated Disease Management in Oil Crops

Abstract

Abiotic stresses are major constraints on oil crop productivity worldwide, causing significant yield losses and increasingly threatening global edible oil security. These stresses also weaken plant defense capacity, indirectly increasing vulnerability to pests and diseases and challenging the effectiveness of integrated disease management (IDM) systems. Recent advances identify nanoparticles (NPs) as an innovative and signaling regulator tool for enhancing abiotic stress tolerance in oil crops through coordinated physiological and molecular regulation. The present review synthesizes current knowledge on NPs applications in major oil‐bearing crops, with emphasis on drought, salinity, heavy metal toxicity and temperature extremes. A key innovation is the integration of NPs application strategies with crop‐specific physiological traits, molecular responses, and hormonal and redox signaling networks. We highlight new insights showing that NPs act as active regulators of stress adaptation by stabilizing membranes, maintaining redox homeostasis, activating antioxidant defenses, modulating stress‐responsive gene expression, and interacting with phytohormones and nitric oxide (NO) signaling. By adopting a cross‐crop, cross‐stress framework, the present review moves beyond stress‐ or species‐specific analyses and directly links abiotic stress mitigation to improved plant resilience and IDM robustness. Key research gaps, including limited field validation, uncertainties in optimal dosing and delivery, and insufficient understanding of environmental fate and safety, are identified. Overall, the present review positions NPs‐based strategies as promising complementary tools for sustainable oil crop protection and IDM.