The application of spatial analysis to sugarcane variety trials

The application of spatial analysis techniques to field data has made a major contribution to the detection and elimination of unforeseen trends. This method of analysis is commonly used in cereals but rarely applied to perennial crops such as sugarcane. In this paper, the method of spatial analysis is demonstrated on a replicated sugarcane field experiment. For the example, spatial analysis resulted in a lower estimate of error variance than the more classical methods of analysis currently practiced by BSES. Consequently, there is a substantial improvement in the precision for the estimates of clonal affects. Simple diagnostic tools to identify a suitable model for the environmental trend effects within a sugarcane field experiment will be illustrated. It is hoped that statistical analysis of sugarcane data will be routinely performed using spatial analysis.