During the early growth stage of plants, low temperatures can alter cell permeability, reduce photosynthetic capacity, and have adverse effects on crop growth, development, and yield. Different strawberry cultivars have varying cold tolerance. In this study, we investigated the changes in cell permeability and photosynthetic activity of short-day and long-day types of strawberry cultivars under varying degrees of low-temperature stress, and evaluated the extent of cellular damage using photosynthetic and chlorophyll fluorescence parameters. The experiment utilized short-day strawberry cultivars ‘Toyonoka’ and ‘Red Face’, and long-day strawberry cultivars ‘Selva’ and ‘Sweet Charlie’ seedlings. Low-temperature treatments were set at −20, −15, −10, −5, 0, 5, and 10 °C for 12 h. The research demonstrated that short-day strawberries had greater tolerance to low temperatures, and all four strawberry cultivars began to experience low-temperature stress when the temperature was below 5 °C. A temperature range of 0 to −10 °C played a crucial role in causing severe cold damage to the strawberries. The low-temperature stress levels were constructed based on electrolyte leakage, with photosynthetic physiological characteristics serving as references. The study proves that the photosynthetic and chlorophyll fluorescence parameters can serve as effective probes for diagnosing low-temperature stress in strawberry seedlings, and their combination provides higher accuracy in identifying stress levels than any single type of parameter.

To investigate the effects of low-temperature (LT) stress on photosynthetic properties and senescence characteristics of winter wheat leaves during the jointing stage, an environmental temperature control experiment was designed at Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology in 2023, using Triticum aestivum L. cv. “Ji Mai 22” as the test material. Four different temperature levels were set: 18 °C/8 °C (daily maximum/daily minimum temperature; CK), 13 °C/3 °C, 10 °C/0 °C, and 7 °C/3 °C. The duration of each treatment was 2, 4, and 6 days, respectively. The experimental findings reveal that the changes in physiological parameters of winter wheat leaves under low-temperature stress treatments are nonlinear. Under the 3 °C LT treatment, the photosynthetic parameters and endogenous hormone levels of wheat leaves significantly decrease after 6 days of stress. Under the 0 °C LT treatment, the photosynthetic parameters, leaf pigment content, and endogenous hormones of wheat decrease significantly, while under the −3 °C LT treatment, all the parameters of winter wheat leaves show a significant decline. Generally, the “Ji Mai22” wheat cultivar has a lower growth temperature limit of −3 °C during the jointing stage.

To study the impact of nitrogen application on the photosynthetic structure and photosystem activity of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) leaves during the recovery stage after heat stress, the OJIP curve and JIP parameters were determined through a control experiment in an artificial climate chamber. The tomato variety was “Jinfen No. 1”. Four day/night temperature levels (25 °C/15 °C as control CKT; 30 °C/20 °C, lightly high-temperature LHT; 35 °C/25 °C, moderate high-temperature MHT; 40 °C/30 °C, severe high-temperature SHT) were set for a duration of 7 days. Five nitrogen supply levels (N1–N5: 0, 1.3, 1.95, 2.6 and 3.75 g/plant, respectively; 2.6 g/plant is the recommended nitrogen application rate, CKTN4) were applied. The results showed that the O, K, J, I and P phases on the chlorophyll a fluorescence curve were significantly affected by different nitrogen treatments in heat stress recovery. Compared with CKT, with the increase in nitrogen supply, the fluorescence intensity of SHTN2-SHTN5 treatment increased significantly at P, I and J phases, while that of MHTN1-MHTN4 treatment decreased. The fluorescence intensity of SHTN5 and SHTN3 increased by 13.27% and 10.10% in the P phase, 13.52% and 12.1% in the I phase and 20.16% and 26.18% in the J phase, respectively. There were highly significant differences (p < 0.01) in the impact of high temperatures and nitrogen levels on the fluorescence parameters. On the 1st day after short-term heat stress, N had no significant effect on ${\mathrm{F}}_{\mathrm{v}}/{\mathrm{F}}_{\mathrm{M}}$, ${\mathrm{F}}_{\mathrm{v}}$, ${\mathrm{F}}_{\mathrm{o}}$ and ${\mathrm{F}}_{\mathrm{M}}$; however, their interaction was significant (p < 0.05). On the 8th day, there were no significant interaction effects between HT and N for ${\mathrm{F}}_{\mathrm{v}}/{\mathrm{F}}_{\mathrm{o}}$, ABS/RC and ${\mathrm{D}\mathrm{I}}_{\mathrm{o}}/\mathrm{R}\mathrm{C}$. ${\mathrm{F}}_{\mathrm{v}}/{\mathrm{F}}_{\mathrm{o}}$ proved to be sensitive to the application of both high temperatures and nitrogen. Under all five nitrogen applications, temperature played a significant role in increasing ${\mathrm{D}\mathrm{I}}_{\mathrm{o}}/\mathrm{R}\mathrm{C}$, especially for N2 and N3. The results indicated that decreasing the nitrogen application under SHT resulted in a higher number of active $\mathrm{R}\mathrm{C}\mathrm{s}$ and an increased value of specific energy flux ($\mathrm{A}\mathrm{B}\mathrm{S}/\mathrm{R}\mathrm{C}$, ${\mathrm{T}\mathrm{R}}_{\mathrm{o}}/\mathrm{R}\mathrm{C}$ and ${\mathrm{D}\mathrm{I}}_{\mathrm{o}}/\mathrm{R}\mathrm{C}$), indicating the enhanced ability of $\mathrm{R}\mathrm{C}$ to reduce plastoquinone. The study provides a reference for the diagnosis of nitrogen nutrition under high-temperature stress using chlorophyll fluorescence methods.

Chilling injury can adversely affect strawberry bud differentiation, pollen vitality, fruit yield, and quality. Photosynthesis is a fundamental process that sustains plant life. However, different strawberry varieties exhibit varying levels of cold adaptability. Quantitatively evaluating the physiological activity of the photosynthetic system under low-temperature chilling injury remains a challenge. In this study, we investigated the effects of different levels of chilling stress on twenty photosynthetic fluorescence parameters in strawberry plants, using short-day strawberry variety “Toyonoka” and day-neutral variety “Selva” as representatives. Three dynamic chilling treatment levels (20/10 °C, 15/5 °C, and 10/0 °C) and three durations (3 days, 6 days, and 9 days) were applied to each variety. WUE, LCP, Y(II), qN, ${\mathrm{S}\mathrm{I}\mathrm{F}}_{{\mathrm{O}}_2-\mathrm{B}}$ and ${\mathrm{r}\mathrm{S}\mathrm{I}\mathrm{F}}_{{\mathrm{O}}_2-\mathrm{B}}$ were selected as crucial indicators of strawberry photosynthetic physiological activity. Subsequently, we constructed a comprehensive score to assess the strawberry photosynthetic system under chilling injury and established a hyperspectral inversion model for stress quantification. The results indicate that the short-day strawberry “Toyonoka” exhibited a recovery effect under continuous 20/10 °C treatment, while the day-neutral variety “Selva” experienced progressively worsening stress levels across all temperature groups, with stress severity higher than that in “Toyonoka”. The BPNN model for the comprehensive assessment of the strawberry photosynthetic system under chilling injury showed optimal performance. It achieved a stress level prediction accuracy of 71.25% in 80 validation samples, with an R² of 0.682 when fitted to actual results. This study provides scientific insights for the application of canopy remote sensing diagnostics of strawberry photosynthetic physiological chilling injury in practical agricultural production.

Capturing crop physiological information by phenotyping is a key trend in smart agriculture. However, current studies underutilize spatial structural information in phenotypic imaging. To evaluate the feasibility of crop cold stress monitoring based on phenotypic spatial variability, we conducted controlled experiments on ‘Toyonoka’ strawberry plants under four dynamic cooling gradients and three stress durations and analyzed the dependence of their photosynthetic physiology and phenotypic traits on temperature-time interactions. The results revealed that NPQ/1D-Parallel/TENT, Y(NO)/2D-Region/INEM, and qP/1D-Parallel/TENT presented the highest mutual information, with the maximum net photosynthetic rate (P_max), relative electrolyte conductivity (REC), and total chlorophyll content (Chl_{a ​+ ​b}), respectively. The difference between the Photosynthetic Physiological Potential Index (PPPI) and relative negative accumulated temperature (RNAT)/650 effectively was used to calculate the cold damage risk (CDRI). An XGBoost-based model integrating the PPPI and RNAT outperformed AdaBoost and RandomForest, achieving an R² of 0.98, an RMSE of 0.337, a classification accuracy of 92.13 ​%, and a Kappa coefficient of 0.904. qP/1D-Parallel/TENT contributed the most to the model. This study provides a scientific basis for phenotypic information mining and agro-meteorological disaster monitoring.