Putting practices and products to the test
of statistics These days, farmers and agronomy practitioners are inundated with new
products and practices. A good marketing strategy and campaign does not
necessarily imply that practices and products have been properly evaluated.
Often, testimonials are being used to support a practice or a product;
however, testimonials are just stories, not scientific data. People that
offer testimonials are often invested in their own story and insist that
what worked for them will work for everybody. Further, results from limited
sites or inadequately planned experiments are utilized. Random events
can result in positive effects by a product or a practice in a single
trial or site that may not be reproducible. Hence proper statistical analysis
must be carried out. But proper statistical analysis predicates proper
experimental protocol that should be accompanied by careful and well-controlled
experimental techniques must be employed with any experimental design.
Normally, peer reviewed articles undergo the test of statistics and should
be used as credible sources of information. Otherwise, a few rules and
attention to a number of issues should be taken into consideration. This
presentation aims at helping conference participants with the latter.
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