Drought stress can reduce strawberry yield and quality and is one of the main abiotic factors restricting strawberry production in China. Nano-agricultural technology has significant regulatory effects in improving crop yield and quality and reducing agricultural environmental pollution. We performed a pot experiment using FenYu No. 1 strawberry and applied copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) and selenium NPs (SeNPs) to study their effects on the growth, quality, photosynthetic parameter indexes, and physiological characteristics of strawberry plants under drought stress. The growth and photosynthesis of strawberry plants were significant adversely affected by moderate drought stress (DS, 60% field capacity (FC)) and severe drought stress (SS, 25% FC). Compared with normal water-holding conditions, the application of CuNPs, SeNPs, and their combination effectively increased the agronomic traits of strawberry plants; improved fruit quality; and enhanced the content of photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, and total chlorophyll), photosynthetic characteristic parameters, chlorophyll fluorescence parameters, and water-use efficiency. In addition, the exogenous application of CuNPs and SeNPs improved the drought tolerance of plants by increasing the activities of antioxidant enzymes catalase, peroxidase, and superoxide dismutase, and decreasing the malondialdehyde content, with the following overall trend among the treatments: control < CuNPs < SeNPs < CuNPs + SeNPs. The results of the principal component analysis showed that the two extracted principal components could reflect 85.54% of the information of the original data, leaf photosynthetic pigments, photosynthetic characteristic parameters, chlorophyll fluorescence parameters, and strawberry agronomic traits indexes and could be used as the primary indexes for evaluating the improvement of strawberry growth by nanofertilizers under drought-stress conditions. Taken together, our results indicate that nanofertilizers have potential for improving the growth, quality, and physiological characteristics of strawberries under drought stress.

Strawberry black spot, caused by Alternaria spp., is an emerging disease that threatens both leaves and fruits during strawberry growth and postharvest storage. This study investigated the boscalid sensitivity of 49 Alternaria isolates collected from symptomatic strawberry leaves. Boscalid has been widely used to control diseases in strawberry in China for several years. The EC₅₀ values for the tested isolates ranged from 0.0884 to 266.3289 µg/mL, indicating that most isolates exhibited varying levels of resistance to boscalid based on resistance ratio values. A substitution of SDHC-H134R was detected from most high-resistance isolates. Fitness cost assessment revealed that highly resistant isolates had a reduced conidial germination rate; however, their mycelial growth and conidia production were increased. No significant virulence deficiency was observed, suggesting low fitness cost in resistant isolates. Furthermore, the highly resistant isolates exhibited positive cross-resistance to fluopyram and fluxapyroxad. Molecular docking analysis revealed that the SDHC-H134R mutation reduced the binding affinity between boscalid and mitochondrial complex II. These findings suggest that resistance management strategies, such as fungicide rotation or combinations of fungicides with different action modes, should be implemented to control strawberry diseases, minimizing the development of fungicide resistance and improving overall disease control efficacy.

Soil physicochemical heterogeneity and rhizosphere microbial communities jointly influence plant nutrient acquisition and crop performance, yet their relative associations with strawberry nutritional status and productivity remain poorly understood in acidic agricultural soils. In this study, soil physicochemical properties, enzyme activities, bacterial community diversity and composition, leaf mineral status, agronomic traits, and fruit quality were systematically characterized across strawberry cultivation sites. Mantel tests, redundancy analysis (RDA), and partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) were used to examine the relationships among soil conditions, microbial communities, plant mineral nutrition, and strawberry performance. Pronounced spatial variation was detected in soil nutrient status, electrical conductivity (EC), bacterial community structure, leaf mineral composition, agronomic traits, and fruit-quality characteristics. Bacterial richness indices, particularly ACE and Chao1, were more strongly associated with leaf mineral accumulation than individual soil physicochemical variables or enzyme activities. In contrast, fungal Shannon and Simpson diversity indices showed stronger associations with variation in fruit quality, indicating that bacterial and fungal community attributes were differentially related to distinct components of strawberry performance. Path analysis further indicated that soil physicochemical properties were indirectly associated with plant traits primarily through bacterial α-diversity, with a particularly strong pathway linking microbial diversity to leaf mineral status. Soil-related variables accounted for a greater proportion of the variation in agronomic traits than in fruit quality. Moreover, soils enriched in different bacterial genera were associated with contrasting leaf Zn and Fe concentrations, potentially reflecting taxon-specific responses to micronutrient conditions. Spearman correlation analysis further revealed trait-specific relationships among soil fertility, mineral profiles, vegetative performance, and fruit quality, suggesting that nutrient status was differentially associated with growth and quality attributes rather than reflecting a generalized trade-off. Collectively, these results indicate complementary but distinct microbial associations: bacterial richness was more strongly associated with variation in leaf mineral profiles, whereas fungal diversity showed more specific relationships with fruit-quality traits. Rhizosphere microbial community attributes may therefore serve as potential ecological indicators of variation in strawberry nutritional status and fruit quality, rather than as experimentally validated causal drivers of plant performance.