The Role of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles in Boosting Tomato Leaf Quality and Antimicrobial Potency

Salt stress is a major agricultural issue. A promising modern agriculture method is the foliar treatment of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnONPs). This approach has shown promise in boosting challenged tomato yields, fruit quality, and leaf extract antibacterial activity against pathogens. A greenhouse experiment was conducted. The previously synthesized and characterized ZnONPs were used to alleviate the harmful effects of NaCl stress. Tomato fruit weight from different treatments was determined, and the gas–liquid chromatography device was used to observe the changes in fatty acid production. The antimicrobial activities of the aqueous and diethyl ether extracts from tomato leaves were determined against six bacterial and six fungal strains. The plants that were salinity-stressed and sprayed with 0.075 and 0.15 g/L ZnONPs showed a better improvement compared to the salinity-stressed plants. Also, the sprayed plants that were not stressed at all showed promising results compared to the control and the other different treatments. Through the process of molecular docking, it was shown that caffeic acid, ferulic acid, p-coumaric acid, sinapic acid, and apigenin-7-glucoside are essential chemicals that possess antibacterial and antifungal effects against the DNA Gyrase inhibitor and the sterol 14-alpha demethylase (CYP51) enzyme, respectively. It is concluded that salt stress can negatively affect the growth, quality, and variant plant features. However, the foliar application of ZnONPs is able to overcome those adverse effects in the stressed plants, and enhance the non-stressed as well.