+1 862 207 3288 Experimental Agriculture REPORT WRITING Guidelines
Effect of seedbed conditions and seed ageing on establishment of wheat
Hypotheses:
Rank seed bed preparation treatments in order of expected percentage emergence
Do you expect more seedlings with aged or unaged seeds?
Do you expect any interaction of seedbed preparation and seed ageing?
Treatments
The seedlots. The seeds provided were all originally from the same plots at the University’s Farm at Sonning in 2012. They were stored in a cold room (c. 4 °C) as a single seed lot at the Crops Research Unit until September 2013, when a bag of seed was transferred to the Seed Science Laboratory in the Agriculture Building at Earley Gate. The moisture content on receipt was 13.56 % (calculated on a fresh weight basis as is usual for seed). The seedlot was split into two batches. Both batches were sealed in foil packets to prevent any change in moisture content.
• Seed lot U (unaged control) is untreated and has been kept in the Seed Science Lab. until use.
• Seed lot A (artificially aged) was placed in an incubator at 50 °C stored for 3.2 days and has been kept in the Seed Science Lab. with seed lot A until use.
Seed bed preparation treatments (all planted using a direct drill)
1. ‘zero tillage’: crop drilled directly into residue of previous wheat crop
2. ‘minimum tillage’: stubble just harrowed and then drilled
3. ‘P’ drilled into ploughed land (no harrowing to create a seedbed after ploughing)
4. ‘PH’ drilled into ploughed and power harrowed land
5. ‘PH’ The fifth treatment could not be completed due to extremely adverse sowing conditions. Plan was to drill into ploughed and power harrowed land, and then subsequently roll with a Cambridge roller (or equivalent). The rolling part could not be carried out. So these plots are the same as treatment 4
6. ‘PHRC’ drilled as in treatment 4 above, then compacted by repeatedly running tractor over plot
Seed lot: wheat cv. Solstice.
Aged and unaged seeds sown @ 200 seeds per square metre
2 blocks
Plot size: 5 m x 2m; Row spacing 16.6 cm
For “good” field conditions assume a field factor of 0.8 to achieve a target emergence of 200/0.8 = 160 seeds per m2, respectively. On average we expect about 15% winter kill. So numbers should be lower by
ISTA (1979). Handbook for Seedling Evaluation. 130 pp. Zurich: International Seed Testing Association (ISTA).
Please follow approach outlined in attached Riley’s papers on analysis and presentation.
Experimental design and plot layout for the variety trial (“cash crop”) for which you captured R/FR data is in the file Experimental treatments for the crop establishment trial is in Sonning Field Expt” Data for both expts is in “Expts 2 and 3 ….”. This file has field plan for Expt 2 (emergence study)
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NOTE: You only have to write up the results section, which is not the same as drawing a graph although it may include that. Some people think that to say “Results are shown in Fig. x)” is what it means to write up results. Have a look at any paper and you will find it is not.
NOTE BELOW:
• No introduction, no materials & methods, no discussion; no references; no abstract.
NOTE BELOW:
• You must create a graph with an explanation
• You must analyse the data and present the results in one or more graphs in such a way as to test the relevant hypotheses (e.g. relating to seed lot, seed bed preparation and their interaction for the seedling emergence expt)
• You must state in writing the hypothesis/es tested by the graph(s), how the analysis was carried out
• If possible, provide the ANOVA table, and then explain in writing the message conveyed by graph(s) and also the result(s) of testing the hypothesis/es.
NOTE: BELOW:
When analysing the seedling emergence counts you need to analyse as follows:
• If you analyse percentage emergence, please make sure you transform the percentages to angles before analysis (for the same reason as we transformed the percentage germination data in the lab trial except that here we have very low emergence values whereas as in the lab trial we had high ones)
• The experimental design is unbalanced because the PHR and PH treatments ended up being the same in the field as it was not possible to roll after drilling due to the wet weather. In addition, seed lots were not always planted in the right plots due to the extreme difficulty of drilling last autumn.
