Automating Uniformity Trials to Optimize Precision of Agronomic Field Trials

Plot size has an important impact on variation among plots in agronomic field trials, but is rarely considered during the design process. Uniformity trials can inform a researcher about underlying variance, are seldom used due to their laborious nature. The objective of this research was describe maize varying and develop tool optimize field-trial using uniformity-trial statistics. Six uniformity were conducted 2015–2016 conjunction with Iowa State University WinField United. All six exhibited negative asymptotic relationship between variance plot size. Variance per unit area reduced over 50% 41.8 m2 75% when >111.5 compared 13.9 plot. shape within fixed did not influence variance. data illustrated fewer replicates needed as increased, since larger variability. Use Shiny web application demonstrated that allows upload yield map consider statistics replicate decisions.