A lack of know-how can be a major hurdle that prevents producers from conducting their own on-farm trials.
However, Ross McKenzie of McKenzie Ag Consulting says farmers don’t need to know much, and the benefits can be worth the time.
For example, fungicides can cost $15 to $20 per acre.
“If you have 1,000 acres of wheat, it’s a $20,000 investment … and if you figured out through a trial that you’re not getting a benefit from it, you can save that 20k.”
Farmers who conduct a field trial for fungicides would only have to buy field markers and then intentionally miss some passes while spraying.
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“It will take a certain amount of time, but as long as it’s not a huge investment of time, it can be worthwhile,” said McKenzie.
He said following a few critical rules will help producers conduct a proper trial:
- Keep it simple. Work on only one variable at a time, if possible, and don’t exceed three.
- Side-by-side trials are the most reliable. Replicate each treatment four times (with and without), for a total of eight strips parallel to one another.
- Make sure you know what each strip is when applying field markings.
- Monitor yield in each strip separately and accurately. A combine monitor is convenient but isn’t accurate. A grain cart with a weight system will provide better numbers.
“You want to make sure you get a good record of the yield.”
McKenzie said information overload can be a problem.
In many cases good research has been carried out, but producers often want to know how a product or practice will work on their particular farm.
“In other cases, there are new products or practices being promoted and no research has been done,” said McKenzie.
“Usually I suggest that if there’s been no research done in Western Canada by a research station or by an agricultural university, I suggest probably best not to try it on your own farm. You don’t want to be the guinea pig to find out the hard way it doesn’t work.”
McKenzie said producers should look for products or practices that have been demonstrated to work well in different areas of the Prairies and then focus on the options that could work for their situation.
“Try things that have a high probability that you’re going to get response,” said McKenzie.
“Do some testing for a few years, and if you’re finding with and without that you are getting a response, that’s great information to know.”
Farmers should also eliminate environmental and field conditions from the equation by doing a side-by-side strip trial. This allows them to make sure conditions are equal, even if the field or area weather conditions vary.
McKenzie suggested using a strip treatment and then repeating it four times in the same field.
He said just a single strip test in one field is not reliable.
He also pointed out problems with other test strategies that do not use side-by-side testing.
“Farmers might divide a quarter section in half, while another might conduct a farming practice on one 80 acre piece and a new practice on the adjacent 80 acres.
“Then if you have a four bu. yield difference per acre on one side of the field versus the other, you honestly don’t know if that was due to chance and slightly different soil conditions on the one side.”
Replication is the only way to eliminate variability, he said.
Producers can feel comfortable making application decisions after a four strip fungicide trial shows a yield difference of four or five bu. or higher. For extra assurance, they may want to repeat the trail to confirm it.
“But what if you do the four strips with and without, and the treatment yields higher in two strips and the untreated one has one higher?” said McKenzie.
“You can see there is some variability there. Probably when you do the steps, you’ll find out there is no significant difference.”
Simple statistics should provide growers with answers as to whether there is a significant difference.
Farmers who aren’t comfortable conducting statistical analysis can contact a government extension office.
“To run the stats, the simple field experiment would only take a few minutes,” he said.
“Any researcher would be happy to help a farmer do something like that.”
He said it’s also important to share results regardless of success.
“Often times, local people are putting on extension meetings and if a farmer or two or three go to the effort of testing some product, if they are willing to share that with their neighbours at a local meeting in the wintertime, that would be great,” said McKenzie.
“The more we can share results, positive or negative, the better off the agricultural community in that area will be.”
