Guidance systems and control monitors really make on-farm research easier. In the past, it was hard to set up replicated plots, and time consuming to record and weigh the results. Today, yield monitors, guidance systems and rate controllers really make research much easier. 

Good on-farm research requires being able to replicate and randomize treatments. A treatment is each item you are testing. Replicate treatments to make sure results aren’t coincidental to field locations, but are repeatable across the field.

Easy With Guidance

In the past, it was difficult to randomize treatments because you needed to mark them with stakes. With a guidance system, you simply drive your first line and/or contour and use guidance to pick swaths as you plant.

Let’s say you want to test four hybrids — A versus B versus C versus D — and you want to replicate the test three times. You would plant three replications of four hybrids, or make 12 strips across the field.

You should randomize each of the four blocks. You might order the hybrid strips as A-D-C-B, then C-B-D-A, and then B-A-D-C for a total of 12 randomized and replicated strips.

With guidance, this task is easy. You can plant all A treatments first by planting swaths 1, 8 and 10, then change the seed; plant B hybrids by planting swaths 4, 6 and 9, then change the seed; and plant C hybrids in swaths 3, 5 and 12; and finally plant the D hybrid in swaths 2, 7 and…