Local check as a fourth crop variety?

Tricot / ClimMob Methods
1

Why can’t we include the local check as a fourth crop variety in the tricot data analysis?

As you know, the local check is often the most relevant point of comparison for farmers — it’s what they know and trust. Yet, in the current setup of ClimMob, it’s treated as something “outside” the three test varieties, even though farmers naturally compare everything to it.

Could formally including the local check as a fourth variety (i.e. variety “D”):

  • Improve the relevance and interpretability of our results?
  • Align better with farmers’ decision-making processes?
  • Or would it introduce analytical or methodological complications?

I’m genuinely curious to hear your thoughts — both the pros and the cons. Has this been explored before? Are there technical or philosophical reasons it’s been left out? Or is this something we might revisit as the software and methodology evolve?

2

The local check can be added as part of the randomisation (one of the varieties tested in the trial) as illustrated here (fig 1).

Another case is when the local plot is added as four plot for comparison with the three plots that the farmer has under tricot. This plot will have the same dimensions of the other three under tricot. This is particularly important when you want to register the metric yield in the three plots and compare it with the local variety.

For the rankings, farmers are asked to compare overall performance of plots A, B and C against the local in pairwise.

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