From the preface:
Our business is helping farmers with their business by providing practical information based on good science. We see a lot of on-farm trials being run by farmers and their various supporters as they test out ideas, compare options and determine whether a recommendation ‘actually works on their place’.
Unfortunately, we also see trials that for a range of reasons don’t provide the returns they could. Sometimes people run out of time, or the question no longer seems relevant. But often, for lack of a little forward planning or guidance in correct procedures, really useful business information is lost.
We looked around and found lots of guides with titles about running trials on farms. We found they fitted pretty much into one of two groups: introductory and a bit light on detail (so not really useful), or crammed with detail and statistics that made them scary (so not really useful).
This guide is designed to help farmers make business decisions based on trials done on their own farms. It is on-farm-practical, scientifically sound and business based.
This guide will also be extremely useful to all the other people – technical reps, students, advisors – who, for whatever reasons, run trials on farms. Like the farmers, they need a down to earth, practical guide but they need to make sure their testing is scientifically valid.
So regardless of your link to farming and to running trials, we commend this guide to you. Take a little time to work through it, have a look at the checklists for the different kinds of trial you might be contemplating. And don’t forget to read the section, “Avoiding common trial pitfalls”. As it says, you might recognise some old ‘friends’ that would best be avoided. . .
Dan Bloomer & Nick Pyke
June 2003