PLANT CELL BIOTECHNOLOGY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

Strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) is highly sensitive to salinity, which increasingly threatens production in salt-affected agricultural regions. Salt reduces strawberry’s growth and productivity via osmotic stress, toxic ions, nutritional imbalance, oxidative damage, reduced photosynthesis, and other metabolic damages, resulting in lower fruit yield and quality. This review provides an overview of the literature regarding physiological, biochemical, and molecular mechanisms involved in strawberry responses to salinity. It places particular emphasis on both osmotic and ionic effects caused by salt, disruption of potassium/sodium balance, reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation, antioxidant defence mechanisms, osmoregulation, hormonal regulation, and transcriptional reprogramming associated with salinity adaptation.

This review also describes significant variability among cultivated strawberry varieties and wild Fragaria species in their ability to withstand salt stress and highlights their potential as genetic resources for developing salt-tolerant cultivars. Strategies for alleviating salinity stress using emerging biological and agronomic approaches are discussed, including silicon- and selenium-based nanomaterials, biostimulants, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), and beneficial endophytic fungi. Particular emphasis is given to Piriformospora indica as a promising root endophyte capable of improving nutrient uptake, ion homeostasis, antioxidant activity, and stress resilience under saline conditions. Recent advances in systems biology, multi-omics approaches, microbiome engineering, nanotechnology, and predictive breeding are also discussed in relation to the development of climate-resilient strawberry production systems. Finally, this review identifies important research gaps, including the need for long-term field-scale studies, improved integration of physiological and molecular datasets, and a better understanding of synergistic biological interactions under salinity stress. A multidisciplinary framework is proposed to support the development of biologically based and sustainable strategies for improving strawberry productivity, fruit quality, and tolerance to increasing soil salinization.

Although there is much information that has been published on how strawberries respond to salt (salinity) and how this can be utilized for better growth, there are still many large gaps within strawberry research for long term verification of biological interventions under field conditions; utilization of multi-omics data sets for integration with various types of omics data; developing methods for modifying microbial communities; and utilizing genomics as an aid in plant breeding to develop salinity-resistant strawberry crops.