Comparative Quality of Garden Strawberries ( Fragaria × ananassa Duch. cv. Albion) Produced in Soil and Soilless Sustainable Urban Systems

Abstract

Modern agriculture faces the challenge of balancing high crop yields with sustainable resource management and nutritional quality. Here, soil and soilless systems (hydroponics and aquaponics) for cultivating the day‐neutral cultivar ‘Albion’ of the garden strawberry ( Fragaria  ×  ananassa Duch.) were compared in terms of fruit quality and production yields. Physicochemical parameters, including total soluble solids (TSS), reducing sugars, crude protein, ash, moisture, pH, minerals, total phenolic content (TPC), antioxidant capacity (AC), and pigment levels (anthocyanins, chlorophylls, carotenoids, and CIE Lab colour measurements) were used to assess fruit quality. Soil cultivation achieved the highest biomass and mineral content (ash, K, and Mg), suggesting superior plant adaptation. Hydroponics yielded the heaviest fruits (~ 16 g) with more reducing sugars (860.1 mg.g −1 dw) and TSS (8.77 °Brix), also leading to the highest cell viability. Conversely, despite having the lowest yields, aquaponically grown fruits were the richest in health‐promoting compounds, exhibiting the highest AC (46.8 mg VCEAC.g −1 dw), TPC (32.7 ± 4.2 mg GAE.g −1 dw), and anthocyanin content (261.9 ± 13.1 mg.L −1 dw). All systems produced fruits with low microbial loads and no toxic effects to FL8‐3B liver cells. Soil cultivation has a low energy impact but leads to lower levels of marketable fruits and is less efficient in water and nutrient management. Substrate hydroponics provides strong control over production parameters and uses synthetic nutrients that can be precisely tailored to crop demands, while aquaponics systems although having higher operational complexity and leading to lower crop yields, are highly efficient in water and nutrients and produce fruits of higher nutritional quality.