README file
Data Set Title: Dataset on Optimizing Planting Density for Increased Resource Use Efficiency in Baby-Leaf Production of Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) and Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) in Vertical Farms
Data Set Author/s: Jadhav, V.; Grondona, T.; Pistillo, A.; Pennisi, G.; Ghio, M.; Gianquinto, G.; Orsini, F.
Data Set Contact Person/s: Pennisi G. - giuseppina.pennisi@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
Data set Contents
The data set consists of measured agronomic, physiological and morphological data used for the elaborations contained in the publication: Vivek Jadhav, Tiziano Grondona, Alessandro Pistillo, Giuseppina Pennisi, Marco Ghio, Giorgio Gianquinto and Francesco Orsini. Optimizing Planting Density for Increased Resource Use Efficiency in Baby-Leaf Production of Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) and Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) in Vertical Farms. https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae11040343

Data set Documentation
Abstract
This document contains the database of measured and calculated indexes on resource use efficiency of baby-leaf production of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) and basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) in vertical farm systems. This study tested three different planting densities, namely 123 (low density, LD), 237 (medium density, MD), and 680 (high density, HD) plant m-2. Destructive measurements were performed at 15, 22, and 29 days after sowing. At each time point, agronomical (e.g., Fresh and dry weight), morphological (e.g., leaf area index), and physiological parameters (e.g., chlorophyll content) were measured. Light and energy use efficiency were calculated based on dry and fresh yield. All data were collected within AlmaVfarm, the experimental vertical farming facility of the University of Bologna.

File specifics
The data is provided in CSV format under the file “database_plant_density.csv.” the decimal separator follows the Italian convention, using a comma (,), and fields are separated by semicolons (;). The character encoding is UTF-8. 

This document contains indications on the database for plant observation number (Plant obs. No.), the species (Crops) used for this study (lettuce and basil), the adopted different planting densities (Low density, Medium density, and High density), the number of plants cultivated in m-2 (123, 237, and 680), measurements performed at different point of time (15, 22, and 29 DAS), Fresh weight plant-1 (g), Dry weight plant-1 (g), Fresh yield (kg FW m-2) was obtained by multiplying shoot fresh weight by plants m-2, leaf area index (LAI, m2 m-2), Chlorophyll content (SPAD unit), light use efficiency (LUE, g DW mol-1), and light energy use efficiency (L-EUE, g FW kWh-1).

Data sources 
The dataset refers to the following article https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae11040343