Rice feeds more than 3.5 billion people, but growing it comes with a big price: it needs lots of fertilizer, money, and it adds to climate pollution. Scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and China’s Jiangnan University report a promising idea—spraying rice plants with tiny (nanoscale) particles of selenium. In real field conditions, this approach helped rice use nutrients more efficiently, kept yields strong, improved grain nutrition, supported healthier soil microbes, and reduced greenhouse-gas emissions.

Why does this matter? Because today, rice can use as little as 30% of the nitrogen fertilizer farmers apply—meaning most of it is wasted, washing into waterways and driving problems like algal blooms, while also triggering gases such as methane and nitrous oxide. The study found that nanoscale selenium applied to rice leaves and stems can cut the environmental harms of nitrogen fertilization by 41% and raise economic benefits by 38.2% per ton of rice. Researchers even used a drone to lightly spray the selenium, helping the plant absorb it directly instead of losing it in the soil.