Nottinghamshire were forced to spend a full day in the field as Yorkshire reached 291-3 after winning the toss and electing to bat first.
Adam Lyth, Joe Sayers, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow all reached half centuries for the visitors with Root ending the day unbeaten on 89.
Nottinghamshire’s Paul Franks and Andre Adams were both passed fit to play but Charlie Shreck was omitted with a knee injury, enabling Ben Phillips to make his first class debut for the county.
Despite Adams’ presence, he only bowled nine overs during the day, causing Mick Newell to question the call made on his selection.
“Andre has got a niggle in the elbow that’s built up over the last couple of matches,” said Newell.
“With hindsight, I feel that we shouldn’t have selected him for this game because now we’re in a situation where we don’t want to aggravate the injury any further.
“It’s not a criticism of Andre – we knew he wasn’t one hundred per cent but he offers so much to us when he’s in form that we took a risk that hasn’t paid off.”
This was Yorkshire’s first championship match since they lost to Notts at Headingley Carnegie a fortnight ago and they made three changes from that side with Joe Sayers, Steven Patterson and Ajmal Shahzad coming in for David Wainwright, Oliver Hannon-Dalby and Anthony McGrath.
Adam Lyth and Joe Sayers opened for the visitors and proceeded to an untroubled half century, which was brought up at the start of the 18th over. Sayers, generally renowned as a more careful accumulator of runs, kept pace with his fellow left-hander and both enjoying picking off boundaries on the shorter, New Stand side of the ground.
Chris Read rotated his four seam bowlers without success and just before the interval Lyth reached his half century by caressing Phillips through the covers for four. Later in the same over the pair brought up their century stand and lunched on 101-0.
The duo remained together until the 37th over when Sayers edged Fletcher to Hales at slip, shortly after reaching his 50 – then at the start of the next over Lyth went for 57. Attempting to clip Franks down the ground, a leading edge ballooned to mid on where academy player Ollie Swann, on as a fielding substitute, took a fine catch high over his head.
Both wickets fell with the score on 114 but Notts were then frustrated by a stand of 70 between Joe Root and Andrew Gale, the Yorkshire captain.
Gale had hit centuries against Notts in each of his last two matches against them but this time fell on just 32. Showing his hand early, by going down to sweep Samit Patel, he fell to a fine diving catch from Adam Voges, who had moved smartly from slip to the on-side to complete a brilliant piece of anticipation.
Tea was taken at 210-3, with both sides already having collected their first bonus point.
Root’s 50 came soon after play resumed when he hit Patel away square on the offside for four. In his next over the spinner suffered at the hands of Jonny Bairstow, who launched him for six over the ropes at long on.
As the session progressed the two batsmen increased the tempo and stretched their stand into three figures. Bairstow moved on to his own fifty but just before the close Root was dropped on 88 by Neil Edwards at gully, off Steven Mullaney’s bowling.
Root will start the second day eleven runs away from his maiden championship century with his partner unbeaten on 50.
“It’s a hard game for us to win from here,” added Newell.
“If we can bowl Yorkshire out in less than half a day tomorrow it won’t be too much of an intimidating a score. It will all come back to how we bat in our first innings.”