Optimizing growth conditions in vertical farming: enhancing lettuce and basil cultivation through the application of the Taguchi method

This paper reports on the findings of an experimental study that investigated the impact of various environmental factors on the growth of lettuce and basil plants in vertical farms. The study employed the Taguchi method, a statistical design of experiments approach, to efficiently identify the opti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2023-04, Vol.13 (1), p.6717-6717, Article 6717
Main Authors: Farhangi, Hadis, Mozafari, Vahid, Roosta, Hamid Reza, Shirani, Hossein, Farhangi, Mosen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/449
631/449/2653
631/449/2653/2658
Design of experiments
Environmental conditions
Environmental factors
Farms
Growth conditions
Humanities and Social Sciences
Lactuca
Lettuce
multidisciplinary
Ocimum basilicum
Plant growth
Relative humidity
Research Design
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Taguchi methods
Vertical farming
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Summary:This paper reports on the findings of an experimental study that investigated the impact of various environmental factors on the growth of lettuce and basil plants in vertical farms. The study employed the Taguchi method, a statistical design of experiments approach, to efficiently identify the optimal growth conditions for these crops in a hyper-controlled environment. By reducing the time and cost of designing and running experiments, this method allowed for the simultaneous investigation of multiple environmental factors that affect plant growth. A total of 27 treatments were selected using the Taguchi approach, and the signal to noise ratio was calculated to predict the optimal levels of each environmental condition for maximizing basil and lettuce growth parameters. The results showed that most of the parameters, except for EC and relative humidity for certain growth parameters, were interrelated with each other. To validate the results, confirmation tests were conducted based on the predicted optimal parameters. The low error ratio between expected and predicted values (1–3%) confirmed the effectiveness of the Taguchi approach for determining the optimal environmental conditions for plant growth in vertical farms.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-023-33855-z