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Tricot resources

Curated resources on the tricot approach and ClimMob: key publications, training videos, costing templates, and crop-specific supporting materials.

📄 Publications 🎬 Training Videos 💰 Costing Templates 📄 SOPs 🌾 Supporting Material

Publications

Tricot Guide
Main Publications

The Tricot Guide

Jacob van Etten, Rhys Manners, Jonathan Steinke, Elsa Matthus, Kauê de Sousa. 2020.
The tricot approach. Guide for large-scale participatory experiments.
Rome (Italy): Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT.
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/109942

This is a short, full-colour guide intended for practitioners who are not yet familiar with tricot.
It explains the rationale of tricot and gives an overview of the experimental cycle.

Main publications

All publications about the tricot approach are free and open access.

Jonathan Steinke, Jacob van Etten and Pablo Mejía-Zelan. 2017.
The accuracy of farmer-generated data in an agricultural citizen science methodology.
Agronomy for Sustainable Development 37: 32. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-017-0441-y

The above paper shows that farmers provide accurate data in tricot trials. Their rankings converge with expert rankings for four traits. The variation between farmers still allows for accurate overall ranking of the varieties.
Eskender Beza, Jonathan Steinke, Jacob van Etten et al. 2017.
What are the prospects for large-N citizen science in agriculture? Evidence from three continents on motivation and mobile telephone use of resource-poor farmers participating in “tricot” crop research trials.
PLoS ONE 12(5): e0175700. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175700

This paper investigates the motivation of farmers who participate in tricot trials across three contrasting contexts: Honduras, Ethiopia and India. Farmers are motivated by a wide range of reasons, including intrinsic and extrinsic factors. They do not see it as a pastime, but also do not expect monetary compensation. They expect technical information and access to seeds as reward of their participation.
Jacob van Etten, et al. 2019.
First experiences with a novel farmer citizen science approach: Crowdsourcing participatory variety selection through on-farm triadic comparisons of technologies (tricot).
Experimental Agriculture, 55(S1). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0014479716000739

This paper provides an explanation of the tricot approach, how it compares to previous approaches, and some first applications. Note that it uses the Bradley-Terry model, which was replaced by the Plackett-Luce model in later publications.
Jacob van Etten, Kauê de Sousa, […] Jonathan Steinke. 2019.
Crop variety management for climate adaptation supported by citizen science.
PNAS 116(10): 4194-4199. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1813720116

This paper describes the application of large tricot trials in Nicaragua, Ethiopia and India. It demonstrates the potential of tricot to generate insights into variety adaptation, recommend adapted varieties, and aid smallholder farmers in responding to climate change. It is the first large-scale application of climate analysis on tricot data.
Heather Turner, Jacob van Etten, David Firth, Ioannis Kosmidis. 2020.
Modelling rankings in R: the PlackettLuce package.
Comput Stat 35, 1027–1057. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00180-020-00959-3

This article explains the Plackett-Luce model and its implementation in R, as used by the ClimMob platform.
Kauê de Sousa, Jacob van Etten, […] Matteo Dell’Acqua. 2021.
Data-driven decentralized breeding increases prediction accuracy in a challenging crop production environment.
Communications Biology 4, 944. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02463-w

This paper shows that tricot can be effectively combined with genomic selection for highly accurate selection in challenging production environments. Tested with durum wheat in Ethiopia, 3D-breeding doubled prediction accuracy compared to conventional methods, identifying genotypes with superior local adaptation across seasons to improve breeding decisions.
David Brown, Sytze de Bruin, Kauê de Sousa, […] Jacob van Etten. 2022.
Rank-based data synthesis of common bean on-farm trials across four Central American countries.
Crop Science. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20817

This article provides an approach to combine data from different tricot trials to obtain insights for regional analysis using on-farm data.
Oladeji Emmanuel Alamu, Béla Teeken, et al. 2023.
Stablishing the linkage between eba’s instrumental and sensory descriptive profiles and their correlation with consumer preferences: implications for cassava breeding.
Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.12518

This article links tricot data to laboratory instrumental data to understand consumers’ preferences with implications for breeding programs.
Kauê de Sousa, David Brown, Jonathan Steinke, Jacob van Etten. 2023.
gosset: An R package for analysis and synthesis of ranking data in agricultural experimentation.
SoftwareX. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2023.101402

This paper introduces the gosset package used on ClimMob. It demonstrates the package functionality using the case study of a decentralized on-farm trial of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) varieties in Nicaragua.
Pieter Rutsaert, Jason Donovan, Harriet Mawia, Kauê de Sousa, Jacob van Etten. 2023.
Future market segments for hybrid maize in East Africa.
Market Intelligence Brief Series 2. Montpellier: CGIAR. https://hdl.handle.net/10883/22467

This paper introduces a novel approach to assess market demands in seed systems using decentralized testing under the tricot approach.
Carlos Quirós, Kauê de Sousa, […] Jacob van Etten. 2023.
ClimMob: Software to Support Experimental Citizen Science in Agriculture.
SSRN. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4463406

This paper introduces the ClimMob software.
Jacob van Etten, Kauê de Sousa, […] Hale Ann Tufan. 2023.
Data-driven approaches can harness crop diversity to address heterogeneous needs for breeding products.
PNAS 120 (14). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2205771120

This paper brings a perspective on opportunities and challenges of data-driven approaches for crop diversity management (genebanks and breeding) in the context of agricultural research for sustainable development in the Global South.
Rachel C. Voss, Jill E. Cairns, Michael Olsen,Francisca Ndinda Muteti, […] Vincent Woyengo 4. 2023. Innovative approaches to integrating gender into conventional maize breeding : lessons from the Seed Production Technology for Africa project. Frontiers in Sociology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1254595

This case study showed how the maize-focused SPTA project integrated gender into breeding through breeder–social scientist collaboration, culminating in decentralized on-farm variety trials using tricot.

Publications​

The Tricot Guide​

Main publications​

Training Videos​

📌 Introduction to tricot

🖥️ ClimMob software

📊 Data analysis with R

Costing Templates​

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)​

Supporting Material​

Beans​

Cassava​

Cocoa​

Cowpea​

Millet​

Potato​

Sorghum​

Soybean​

Tricot guidance for farmers​

Publications

The Tricot Guide

Main publications

Training Videos

Costing Templates

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

Supporting Material

Beans

Cassava

Cocoa

Cowpea

Millet

Potato

Sorghum

Soybean

Tricot guidance for farmers