# Baseline cultivation protocol

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The common protocol that must succeed before any taste, aroma, nutrient or rotation treatment is interpreted.

In brief

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. [R01]

## References

- [R01] Hammock, Hunter A.; Sams, Carl E. (2023). Variation in supplemental lighting quality influences key aroma volatiles in hydroponically grown 'Italian Large Leaf' basil. *Frontiers in Plant Science*. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2023.1184664