The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Endeavour Fund has granted a Lincoln University research team a $1 million grant in order to apply nanotechnology to agriculture to help increase productivity and reduce environmental impacts. Lincoln University Associate Professor Craig Bunt has reported that his team will use the funding to develop a groundbreaking nano-coating that can be applied to fertiliser to control its rate of release into soil and to seeds to control the timing of germination which will help to contain nitrogen losses in soil and waterways. If successful, the technology should also help to increase crop yields, due to an increase in the ability to control weeds before the seeds germinate.

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