Trial execution

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Trial Management

For tricot trials testing crop varieties, 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 and 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 are trained in tricot methodology, receive their individual trial packages, see how a trial plot looks (on-site or through video), and receive a brochure about tricot. They then 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.