Alternation to the Randomized Block Design for Agricultural Experiments in Korea

농업실험에서 임의화블록설계에 대한 대안 - 농촌진흥청 사례들을 중심으로 -

Randomized block design (RBD) with three replication is very frequently adopted in agricultural experiments of the Rural Development Administration of Korea. Even though it works well in field trials of traditional crops, it may not accomodate trial site conditions and/or experimental environment. In this research report, we deal with two such cases. The first case is for a crop experiment in green houses. In house conditions, RBD may not be appropriate since it cannot reflect two directions of the yield gradient. So, a Latin square design is suggested as an alternative. The second case is for local field experiments of the newly-inbred rice. RBD with three replications is used without doubt for decades, even though the site layout is not appropriately shaped for the design. In this case, we suggest the RBD in two blocks with multiple replicates for control varieties as an alternative. To improve the quality of statistical experimental designs in over one-thousand agricultural trials performed annually in the Rural Development Administration, we need to re-train agricultural researchers on the design and analysis of experiments and call for concerns of Korean statisticians.