Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
across the industry and may be diffi cult to reproduce without appropriate
equipment or technique. A third and perhaps most important reason is
cost. A research trial can be expensive, especially if it involves destroying
part of the crop. In the case of experimental treatments that have not been
approved by the state for agricultural use, the treated crops must be
destroyed immediately after the trial. In other cases, some part of the fi eld
trial's design may put part of the crop at a higher risk for damage from
pests or other distress, sacrifi cing the marketability of the crop. Therefore,
it is cheaper for advisors to put the burden of cost on the growers, although
this limits the pool of growers who can cooperate in fi eld trials to those
who are fi nancially secure.
For the most part, the advisors I worked with felt that they had relatively
easy access to cooperation from growers on fi eld trials. Advisors attributed
much of this cooperative spirit to the “progressive” character of California
growers (see chapter 3) and cited growers' appreciation for the benefi ts of
research. But there are also some advantages that growers can gain from
having the research performed on their own land. For instance, this ensures
that research fi ndings will be especially appropriate to the soil, drainage,
and microclimatic conditions of their locale. In addition, growers are likely
to welcome any improvements to their land that might come with partici-
pation in a fi eld trial. For example, a trial testing new irrigation techniques
may require that a grower's land be graded and leveled before the trial
begins. Once the trial is over, the grower may choose not to use the new
irrigation technique, but the land will still have been improved to perform
the research. These potential benefi ts, which are not by any means univer-
sal in fi eld trials, are weighed against the risks and costs associated with
cooperation. Risks are created for both advisors and growers from the very
combination of science and practical application that makes fi eld trials so
useful in the fi rst place.
A key feature of fi eld trials is a comparison between two different types
of treatments in the same fi eld. Typically, this is a variable or set of vari-
ables that the experimenter attempts to control, or hold constant, through
the course of the experiment. Figure 5.3 shows a technician who worked
for the Monterey County farm advisors marking off sections of a celery
fi eld with yellow tape that says “Do not pick” in English and Spanish. The
areas being marked off represent an experimental crop area and a control
crop area, the former treated with environmentally friendly chemicals and
