By working together with other farmers, suppliers, agronomists and scientists, farmers can use their own trials to bring fast learning, new findings and best practice for themselves and the industry at large. ADAS has conducted over 1000 Line Trials with farmers using the ‘Agronomics’ approach since 2015. Internationally a strong movement of On Farm Experimentation has developed. Innovative Farmers has been supporting Farmer-led research through Field Labs for 10 years.
FarmPEP, a knowledge exchange platform has been developed at www.farmpep.net to connect farmers, advisors, industry & researcher in order ro to generate, connect, distil and share Agricultural Knowledge.
GPS and other modern technologies, along with thorough trial protocols, can make farm trialling straightforward and routine. Decisions and innovations can then become thoroughly validated and tailored to real farming conditions.
This guide outlines processes leading to successful farm-trialling and how to avoid the pitfalls. The guide covers trials conducted with ADAS Agronomics support, trials using yield mapping technology without ADAS support, and trials where the yields are assessed by weighbridge.
A shorter guide is also available below (On-farm trials: five principles for success)