Soil Science 12

Soil Fertility Conservation and Management

Laboratory Exercise No. 5

FIELD FERTILIZER EXPERIMENT

Name: Rating:
Course and Year: Date Submitted:

Introduction:

Objectives:

Materials:

Procedure:
1. Choose crops to be grown
2. Make treatments (combinations of your compost materials)
3. Data to be collected/ gathered (e.g. Plant height/ no. of
leaves); How frequent;
4. Analyze the data statistically
5. Interpret result

Question:
1. Discuss the advantage/s and disadvantages of field fertilizer experiment
2. List down possible treatments to be included in a field fertilizer
experiment with different test crop if the objective of the
experiment is to determine the optimum yield using compost.
Discuss how you will design the experiment to satisfy the objective.

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SAMPLE OF STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

Below is a sample of results obtained from field fertilizer experiment on

upland rice. The experiment is entitled: “Response of Upland Rice to
Nitrogen Application”. Treatments were the following:
1. 0 kg N/ha
2. 45 kg N/ha
3. 60 kg N/ha
4. 75 kg N/ha

The design of the experiment was randomized complete block

replicated three times. Urea, the source of nitrogen was uniformly drilled in
furrows covered with thin layer of soil to prevent the seeds from getting in
contact with it. Phosphorus (60kg P2O5) and potassium (50kg k2O) were
applied to all treatments also at planting using solophos and muriate of
potash, respectively. The rice seeds were drilled in the furrows spaced 30cm
apart at the rate of 80 kg/ha. Each plot measured 5 x 4 m 2.

Weeds were completely controlled by handweeding. The crop was

sprayed with Decis 10 at the rate of 30 mL/16L of water to control insect
pest.

At harvest, sample plants were collected from ten inner rows excluding
those in the 0.6 m on both ends of each row. Panicles of the plants of the
harvestable area were cut from the base, threshed, and sun-dried for three
days after which the grains were cleaned by winnowing before gathering the
yield data. Table 1 shows the yield data. Tha planting plan is as follows. (The
number under the replications are plot numbers).

Treatment (kg N/ha) Replication

I II III
1. 0 1 8 11
2. 45 3 6 9
3. 60 2 5 12
4. 75 4 7 10

Procedure:
1. Tabulate the result in a form ready for statistical analysis.
2. Analyze the data statistically and interpret
3. Interpret the data economically assuming the following:
a. Price of urea per 50-kg bag = P3,000.00
b. Fixed cost per hectare = P15,000.00. This includes the cost of land
preparation, insecticides, labor and seeds.
c. Selling price of rice per kg = P15.00

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Table 1. The grain yield of upland rice as affected by N levels

Plot Plant height Grain yield

No. (cm) (t/ha)
1. 86 1.86
2. 89 1.9
2
3. 95 1.9
7
4. 10 2.1
5 2
5. 84 1.2
5
6. 82 1.2
0
7. 95 1.9
8
8. 10 2.1
6 2
9. 60 0.7
8
10 81 1.1
. 2
11 55 0.9
. 8
12 10 2.1
. 0 0

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SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

The field fertilizer experiment is one of the oldest and best known of
the biological tests. The series of treatments selected depends on the
particular question the experimenter wishes to have answered. The
treatments are then randomly assigned to an area of land and are replicated
for a number of times. Replication involves the application of treatments to a
number of experimental units in the experiment and is done to obtain a
measure of experimental error.

The field experiment is set-up following an appropriate experimental

design and data are generated following standard procedure after such, it is
important to analyze all data statistically. Statistics is universally accepted
as an essential tool for all types of research and there are several statistical
procedures that are available. Proper choice of course, has to be based on
the subject matte rof the experiment and expertise in statistics.

The Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) is one of the most

widely used experimental designs in agricultural research. The design is
especially suited for field experiments where the number of treatments is not
large and the experimental area has a predictable productivity gradient. The
primary distinguishing feature of the RCBD design is the presence of Blocks
of equal sizes each of which contains all the treatments.

There are three sources of variability in a RCBD:

1. Treatment
2. Replication (Block)
3. Experimental error

The steps involved in the analysis of variance for data from a RCBD design are:

Step 1. Group the data by treatments and replications and calculate treatment
totals (T), replication totals (R) and grand total (G).

Step 2. Outline the analysis of variance (ANOVA) as follows:

Source Degrees Sum Mean

of Variation (SV) of Freedom of Squar Compute Tabular F
(df) Squares e
(SS) (MS) dF 5% 1%

Replication (r-1)
Treatment (t-1)
Error (r-1)(t-1)
Total (rt-1)

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Step 3. Using r to represent the number of replications and t the number of
treatments, determine the degree of freedom for each source of variation as:

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 Tota d.f. = rt-1 =
Replication d.f. = r-1 =
Treatment d.f. = t-1 =
Error d.f. = (r-1) (t- =
1)

Sample Computation of Data following RCBD:

Table 1. Grain yield fo rice (IR 8) as influenced by different nitrogen fertilizer rates
Treatment Grain yield, kg/ha Treatme Treatment
(kg I II III IV nt Mean
N/ha) Total
0 5,113 5,398 5,307 4,678 20,496 5,12
4
30 5,346 5,952 4,719 4,264 20,281 5,07
0
60 5,272 5,713 5,483 4,749 21,217 5,30
4
90 5,164 4,831 4,986 4,410 19,391 4,84
8
120 4,804 4,848 4,432 4,748 18,832 4,70
8
150 5,254 4,542 4,919 4,098 18,881 4,70
3 3
Block Total 30,95 31,28 29,84 26,94
2 4 6 7
Grand Total 119,03
0
Grand Mean 4,96
0

Step 4. Compute the correction factor (CF) and the various sum of squares as
follows: (refer to table 1).
G2 (119030)2
a) CF= -------- = ---------------------- = 590,329,285
rt 4(6)
t r
b) Total SS = Σ Σ X2 - CF
i=1 j=1 ij

={(5,113)2 + (5,398)2 + ………. + (4,098)2} - 590,339,204

= 4800659.96

Σ R2j
-----------------
c) Replication SS =-----j=-1 CF
t
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 (30,952)2 + (31,284)2 + (29,846)2 + (26,947)2
=
6
= 592,273,248
= 1,943,962

Σ T2j
d) Treatment SS =-------------------------j=--1 CF
r

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 (20,946)2 + ……….. + (18,813)2
=
4
= 591,527,840
= 1,198,555

e) Error SS = Total – RepSS - TrmntSS

= 4,800,659.96 - 1,943,962 - 1,198,555
= 1,658,142.79

Step 5. Compute the mean square for each source of variation by

dividing each sum of squares by its corresponding degree of freedom as:

Replication 1,943,962
SS = 647,987
a) Replication MS = ------------------------
------------------------ =
r-1 3
Treatment 1,198,555
SS
b) TreatmentMS = = 239,711
----------------------- ------------------------
=
t-1 5
Error SS 1,658,142.79
c) Error MS = = = 110,54
------------------------ ---------------------- 3
(r-1) (t-1) (3) (5)

Step 6. Compute the F-value for testing the treatment

difference as: Treatment MS 239,711
F= = = 2.17
Error MS 110,543

Step 7. Compute the computed F value with the tabular F values with f 1 =
treatment d.f. and f2 = error d.f. and make conclusions.

For our examples, the tabular F values with f1 = 5 and f2 = 15 degrees

of freedom are 2.90 at 5% level of significance, we conclude that the
experiment failed to show any significant difference among the six
treatments.

Step 8. Compute the coefficient of variation as:

Sqrt Error MS 110,543
CV = = = 6.7038
Grand Mean 4,959.5

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Step 9. Enter all values computed in steps 3 – 8 in the Analysis of variance outline in
step
2. The final result is in Table 2.

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Table 2. ANOVA of grain yield data
Source Degrees Sum Mean
of Variation of of Squares Squar Compute Tabular F
(SV) Freedom e
(df (SS) (MS) dF 5% 1%
)
Replication (r-1) 3 1,943,962 647,98
7
Treatment (t-1) 5 1,198,555 239,71
1
Error (r-1)(t-1) 15 1,658,142. 110,54 2.17ns 2.9 4.5
8 3 0 6
Total (rt-1) 23
ns = not significant

10 | P a g
e
11 | P a g
e
12 | P a g
e