## 2 Results
### Altered Rhizosphere Microbial Community Structure by H\({}_{2}\)  
In our field trial experiments, soil nutrient levels were arranged to be comparable among four treatments prior to transplanting (Supplementary Figure S2). However, at the fruiting stage, significant decreases in soil available nitrogen (SAN), soil available phosphorus (SAP), soil available potassium (SAK), and soil organic matter (SOM) contents were clearly observed in the HNW and HNW + F groups compared to SW and SW + F, respectively (Figure 2A). The effects of H\({}_{2}\)-based irrigation on rhizosphere microbial communities were subsequently investigated. We discovered that HNW irrigation did not significantly influence alpha diversity (i.e., Chao1, Shannon, and Simpson indexes) of the microbial communities, regardless of whether the fertilizer was added or not (Figure 2B). However, among four treatment groups, distinct separation of the genera of microbial communities was clearly observed based on the principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) with the first two principal coordinates, which, respectively, explained 86.84% and 7.81% of the variance (Figure 2C). This significant difference among these four treatments was supported by analysis of similarities (ANOSIM; R = 0.963, \(p<0.0001\); Supplementary Figure S3). At the phylum level, the bacterial communities were dominated by Proteobacteria-ria (37.17%), Acidobacteria (8.33%), Gemmatimonadetes (6.12%), Actinobacteria (4.04%), Bacteroidetes (3.82%), Chloroflexi (2.42%), Firmicutes (1.98%), Planctomycetes (1.93%), Verrucomicrobia (1.92%), Nitrospira (1.67%), Thaumarchaeota (1.60%), and Cyanobacteria (1.3%) (average abundances \(>1\%\); Figure 2D, Supplementary Table S2). In the absence of fertilizer, significant increases achieved by H\({}_{2}\)-based irrigation was only observed in the abundance of Proteobacteria and Planctomycetes phyla (increased by 30.54% and 52.78%; \(p<0.05\)) when compared to the SW group. Above enrichments were notably driven by _Burkholderia_, _Cupiravidus_, and _Pseudomonas_ genera, exhibiting notable increases of 43.28%, 109.52%, and 27.45% (\(p<0.05\); Supplementary Table S3). Comparatively, among the dominant phyla, no taxa showed such significant differences between HNW + F and SW + F, except for Thaumarchaeota, showing a decreasing pattern (Supplementary Table S2). We  
Figure 1: Hydrogen-based irrigation positively improves strawberry yield. Photographs of strawberry fields were taken on 28 December 2020 (**A**). Three replicates of 9 m\({}^{2}\) plot were set up, and all soils in 12 plots were mixed and refilled from a 1.5 m depth in all plots. Corresponding total yield, yield per plant, and single fruit weight of strawberry (**B**) were then determined and calculated from 18 December 2020 to 6 April 2021. SW: surface water; HNW: hydrogen nanobubble water; SW + F: surface water plus fertilizers; HNW + F, hydrogen nanobubble water plus fertilizers. Data presented as mean \(\pm\) SD (n = 3). Different letters indicate significant differences (\(p<0.05\)) according to [PERSON]’s test. ** and ** indicate \(p<0.01\) and \(0.001\), respectively (\(t\)-test). subsequently observed that the genera _Sphingomonas_, _Novoshingobium_, and _Sphingobium_ of Proteobacteria in the HNW + F group, as well as _Mycobacterium_ of Actinobacteria, were more abundant (increased by 71.96%, 102.29%, 50.00%, and 11.11%, respectively; \(p<0.05\) or 0.01), compared to SW + F treatment (Supplementary Table S3). Figure 2: Changes in soil nutrients, diversity and composition of rhizosphere microbial communities in response to hydrogen-based irrigation. Reductions of soil available nitrogen (SAN), soil available phosphorus (SAP), soil available potassium (SAK), and soil organic matter (SOM) contents were calculated at the fruiting stage (10 November 2020) compared to that before planting (24 August 2020), respectively (**A**). Data presented as mean \(\pm\) SD (n = 3). Boxplot showing Chao1, Shannon, and Simpson indexes of microbial communities (**B**).