README file
Data Set Title: “Assessing growing media in simplified hydroponics in Tunisia: an open access dataset”
Data Set Author: Vito Aurelio Cerasola (University of Bologna), ORCID 0000-0002-8565-8236; Amel Jmayai (CEFA Onlus), Federica Viola (CEFA Onlus), Dorra Jamai (CEFA Onlus), Federica Adamo (CEFA Onlus), Corina Costea (CEFA Onlus), Giuseppina Pennisi (University of Bologna), ORCID 0000-0001-9377-4811; Francesco Orsini (University of Bologna), ORCID 0000-0001-6956-7054; Nicola Michelon (University of Bologna), ORCID 0000-0001-6240-9520; Marco Setti (University of Bologna), ORCID 0000-0002-0809-4844; Giorgio Gianquinto (University of Bologna), ORCID 0000-0002-6548-5526
Data Set Contact Person: Vito Aurelio Cerasola (University of Bologna), ORCID 0000-0002-8565-8236, vito.cerasola@unibo.it  
Data Set License: this data set is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/  
Publication Year: 2025
Project Info: 
•	FOODLAND (FOOD and Local, Agricultural, and Nutritional Diversity), funded by European Union, Grant Agreement num. 862802. https://www.foodland-africa.eu/.  
Data set Contents
The data set consists of: 
•	1 quantitative data file saved in Excel format
“FOODLAND_WP4_Dataset_Simplifiedhydroponics_OA.xlsx”
•	1 README file saved in .rtf format
“FOODLAND_WP4_Dataset_Simplifiedhydroponics_OA.rtf”
Data set Documentation
Abstract
The following dataset was used for the publication Cerasola, V.A., Jmayai, A., Viola, F., Jamai, D., Adamo, F., Costea, C., Pennisi, G., Orsini, F., Michelon, N., Setti, M. and Gianquinto, G. (2025). Simplified hydroponics in Tunisia: assessing the charred straw as growing substrate for lettuce cultivation. Acta Hortic. 1422, 29-36. The dataset includes the agronomic variables monitored at the harvest of a lettuce crop cultivated in a simplified hydroponic system, in a validation experiment where two different growing media were tested (commercial perlite versus carbonized wheat straw). The hydroponic system is a closed-loop system, where plastic bottles are used as pot where plants are transplanted. The bottles are joined in lines, and tilted at the slope of 24%, and filled with the substrate. The system integrated a fed-gravity irrigation system, where the nutrient solution is delivered from an upper tank (at 2 m height) to the first bottles of the lines. Thanks to the gravity, the nutrient solution reaches the lower part of the system from where the water is recovered with a drainage system and recirculated again (for a visual representation of the hydroponic system the reader is invited to read the publication Michelon, N. et al. (2020). Strategies for improved yield and water use efficiency of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) through simplified soilless cultivation under semi-arid climate. Agronomy, 10(9), 1379. https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy10091379). The data coming from the experimentation are reported in the file attached.
Content of the file
File FOODLAND_WP4_Dataset_Simplifiedhydroponics_OA.xlsx contains one sheet where the agronomic variables are reported, indicating the substrate treatment in the first column, the position in the second, the replicate in the third, the plant position (numbered from 1 to 10) in the fourth, and the measured variables from the fifth column.
Methodologies 
The experiment was realized in autumn in Northern Tunisia (Fernena) in the simplified hydroponic system described in the abstract. A two factor experiment with three replicates was implemented, where the growing substrates (the main plot factor) were tested in combination with the plant position in the bottle line (subplot factor). The bottle line is composed by 12 plants (6 bottles in total, 2 plants per bottle). The first and the last plant were not included in the data monitoring to mitigate the border effect. The remaining 10 inner plants were numbered from 1 (the first plant in the top of the system) to 10 (the last plant at the bottom). To the plants in the position from 1 to 3 are classified as High (higher position of the system), the plants from 4 to 7 are classified as central, while the plants from 8 to 10 are classified as low (lower position in the system). The harvest occurred at 45 days after the transplant.
List of variables 
Parameter	Description	
treatment	Treatments with growing media, including perlite and carbonized wheat straw (straw)	
position	Position of the plant in the hydroponic system. High (plant placed from the position from 1 to 3), central (plant from 4 to 7), low (plants from 8 to 10).	
replicate	Three replicates for each analyzed sample, named “1”, “2”, “3”	
plant_number	Plant sampled in the position indicated by the number (from 1 to 10).	
height	Height of the plant (cm) measured at harvest	
total_leaves_number	Total number of leaves counted in the sampled plant at the harvest	
marketable_fresh_number	Number of leaves counted in the sampled plants classified as marketable at the harvest	
total_fresh_weight	Total weight of the plant sampled at the harvest (grams per plant)	
marketable_fresh_weight	Marketable weight of the plants at the harvest (grams per plant)	
dry_weight	Weight of the plant after drying in oven until constant weight (grams per plant)	
plant_dry_matter	Percentace of dry matter calculated as the ratio between the dry weight on the fresh weight, in percentage.	
spad	SPAD value monitored with the SPAD (Konica Minolta). Adimensional	
WUE	Water Use Efficiency (WUE) calculated as the grams of fresh marketable weight per Liter of water used.	

Notes 
The data are presented in the following publication:
Cerasola, V.A., Jmayai, A., Viola, F., Jamai, D., Adamo, F., Costea, C., Pennisi, G., Orsini, F., Michelon, N., Setti, M. and Gianquinto, G. (2025). Simplified hydroponics in Tunisia: assessing the charred straw as growing substrate for lettuce cultivation. Acta Hortic. 1422, 29-36. https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2025.1422.4