The common protocol that must succeed before any taste, aroma, nutrient or rotation treatment is interpreted.
Objective
Demonstrate that one crop and cultivar can be grown repeatedly under a fixed recipe with acceptable environmental and biological variability.
Minimum design
| Element | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Crop | named species and cultivar |
| Seed | supplier and lot |
| Replicates | at least 8–12 biological units for the initial engineering baseline, refined by variance estimates |
| Cycles | three independent cultivation cycles before recipe-level claims |
| Positions | randomised and position effect tested |
| Harvest | fixed physiological/chronological rule |
| Environment | complete pH, EC, temperature, humidity, light and rotation logs |
| Outputs | germination, survival, fresh/dry mass, morphology, images and resource use |
Baseline acceptance
Acceptance thresholds are defined before the first cycle for sensor uptime, recipe deviations, survival, position effect and coefficient of variation. Thresholds are revised only through a versioned protocol amendment, never after seeing the treatment outcome.
Recommended first crop
Italian Large Leaf basil is the strongest first research crop because published hydroponic aroma-light evidence exists, growth cycles are shorter than strawberry, tissue is directly used for aroma/sensory analysis and the plant fits the intended hospitality use case.