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windbreaks used to break the wind and trap moisture as snow in the Northern Great Plains. Alternating strips of different species, such as maize and soybean, have been used by a number of farmers in the Western Corn Belt. Although there is a growing body of technical research on. experiment stations to validate and quantify the effects of these practices, many of them in fact originated with farmers in the region. What has been difficult is the rationalization of different methods used by farmers to test their systems, and those used by scientists trained in a different research paradigm.
In many respects, on-farm research has a great deal. in common with industrial statistical process control. In manufacturing, products are designed in the lab, then prototypes are produced and evaluated under "real world conditions.* During the latter phase, problems are identified when typical workers, rather than research engineers, attempt to produce the product and when prospective consumers attempt to use the product. Invariably, they find ways to "break" the product that would never occur to lab workers. So it is with agricultural research. The experiment station or greenhouse can be thought of as the agronomic lab. The function of on-farm trials is identical in agriculture to "real world* testing in manufacturing. Real farmers will surface problems not encountered by experiment station workers; the research process is not complete until this is done.
DESIGNS FOR RESEARCH ON COMMERCLIL FARMS
In a recent symposium of the American Society of Agronomy in San Antonio, there were* many; presentations about~howresearch Js being.condur-ted on,farms. The examples appeared to fall into one of two categories. .First was the replicated .trial with relatively small plots in which the university researcher developed an agenda, designed treatments and plots in the field, collected most of the data and interpreted the results. The farmer was a participant in providing land and some cultural operations during the season, but was not an active part of the planning or the evaluation process. This role for the farmer meets most of the reasons for locating plots on farms as listed by Lockeretz (1987).
In contrast, a second approach was essentially an extension of the farming systems research/extension philosophy and method (Hildebrand and Poey, 1985), where farmers were primary participants in the setting of a research agenda, search for relevant treatments, layout and implementation of the trial, and interpretation and use of results. The latter approach provides an environment in which the methodologies given by Taylor (1990) for on-farm research can be implemented: use of multidisciplinary research teams (including the farmer), whole-farm analysis of results where appropriate, design of long-term plots and treatments, and synthetic as well as analytical approaches to use of data. In the United States, the former approach has been favored by researchers from-land grant universities, -while-the- latter has been part of the agenda.of farmer groups and other non-profit organizations. The proponents of each approach find it difficult to communicate at times with others who. do not share their definitions of what constitutes. research, since each group has a relatively clear mind set of what is meant by *on-farm research, while in fact these definitions are quite divergent.
When a university trained scientist uses the term "research', there is an assumption of an explicit and testable hypothesis, replicated treatments irt a randomized pattern in a standard design, homogeneity of variances among treatments, control of experimental conditions, and relative uniformity of the experimental area or some blocking pattern to handle variation in the field. These are the normal assumptions connected with the analysis of variance, and although they are nor always. strictly- adhered to we -often: make. the- assumption- that they are being met Saying that