Trial execution

Trial execution

The farmers plant and manage the trials independently.Every farmer is responsible for his/her own plot.

• Carrying out an on-farm trial is simple. No special skills are required. Any farmer can participate.

• Farmers are farming experts. The participating farmers deserve full respect as generators of new knowledge.

Through the training and distribution workshop, farmers were trained in tricot methodology, received their individual trial packages, saw a trial plot (on-site or through video), and received a brochure about tricot. Now they need to choose a part of their land on which to conduct their own trial. It is important to understand that the trials must represent regular farming practice for the results to be useful.

Two principles should be kept in mind:

1. The trial should resemble production conditions that reflect reality, not optimal production conditions.

• To ensure this, the trial plot should be located right next to, or even within, the farmer’s regular production plot. Farmers should neither select the best nor the worst spot, but an average, representative location.

• Also, each trial should be managed by the participating farmer in exactly the same way as they normally manage their crop (unless the technology under analysis is about crop management). For example: If the farmers usually intercrop with another crop, they may also do intercropping with the trial varieties. The regular plot and trial plots should be treated and maintained equally. Special attention to the trial plots, but also negligence, will distort the results. For example, if the farmers do not irrigate their production plot, they should not irrigate the trial plot either.

2. The trial should enable a fair comparison between the three options on each plot.

• The three technology options are applied next to each other, in separate sub-plots of the same size, and in the exact same way. In the case of varieties, each variety is planted in the same defined number and length of rows. For example: Six rows of five meters’ length each, or four rows of eight meters in length.

• In the case of fertilizers or other input trials, amounts or combinations are applied as specified by the implementers.

• Technology option A is used to the left, B in the middle, C to the right. The borders between the technology options may be marked with sticks or a rope. The three technology options should never be mixed with each other.

Apart from the small plot size, there is really nothing new or special about planting the trials. The farmers should be confident in using their own farming skills and implement the new technologies in the same way as they would normally conduct their work.

11. Start an assessment

Once participants have been registered and packages have been distributed, the on-farm trials can begin, and data collection (assessment) takes place.

How-to:

Data can be collected in different ways and at different time frames, depending on the project managers’ preferences:

● If participants have observation cards, their trial data can be collected at the end of the planting cycle.

● If participants do not have observation cards, field agents should visit them at each data collection point to record their observations.

Field agents can collect data in two ways:

1. Using ODK Collect (recommended).

2. Uploading data to the ClimMob platform through an Excel file.

On the ClimMob platform:

1. Once all participants are registered, go to the project overview section (bottom left side).

2. From the drop-down menu, select the data collection moment you want to assess and click Start assessment.

3. Upload the data for that specific data collection moment. (Learn more about data uploading in the next step!)

4. When finished, move on to the next data collection moment.