Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Maize Trial Designing

Trial design is a very important activity in germplasm evaluation processes. Good field designs are important at all major stages of a plant breeding program from the earlier stages of screening large number of genotypes to a few elite selections for release. At each stage, good field designs are critical to ensure an efficient cost-effective operation and to ensure the best possible genetic material is identified. Designs can range from unreplicated trials in one location to a fully replicated trial across many testing environments.