On-farm trials are a bit like painting a house – the preparation’s the hard part and the job itself is relatively easy.

Establishing a trial is a little different to establishing a commercial crop. First, trials usually involve comparing something ‘old’ with something ‘new’. Second, whereas a commercial crop pays you only once, the results from a reliable trial could pay dividends for years, or cost you for years!

The starting conditions of the trial can have a big bearing on the results. Memories can be unreliable at the best of times, so it’s a good idea to make notes on the trial site the day that treatments are established.

More

In the vast majority of cases, you’ll be establishing the treatments using your own farm equipment.

First, before establishing any treatments, calibrate your equipment to ensure that it can apply the right amount and distribution of material. Second, after establishing each treatment, ensure that it has applied the right amount and distribution of material.

There are several methods for checking that the right amount of material has been applied. The easiest is probably to measure the amount of material going into your equipment and, at the end of each application, emptying it and measuring what comes out. If the amount doesn’t tally with your plans, assess whether this will have compromised your trial and take the appropriate actions. These could include abandoning the trial or making ‘touch-up’ re-applications.

The time of treatment establishment is a red-letter day in the life of your trial. What you do and what the site is like on this day can have a big bearing on trial outcomes.

Immediately after you’ve finished the job, record the conditions prevailing during treatment application. Include in your records your impressions of how it all went.

Make notes of possible problems and things to look out for in future. These will help to interpret the results at the end of the trial.

Record details of crop type and variety, sowing rate, planting date, row spacing, soil temperature, equipment used and anything else that may help to explain crop establishment and performance.

End of section critical decision pointHave you been able to verify that your treatments have been applied as planned? If not, how can you be certain about the reliability of your trial? If the treatments have not been established according to plan, does it significantly reduce the value of the trial? If so, you may be best to keep your trial plan but implement it in a different place or time. There’s still quite a bit of  work to be done, and it would be best to do it on a well-established trial. If, on the other hand, it all looks OK, then move on to the next section -7 Monitoring the trial – enacting your operational plan.