How to Pois(s)on the Relationship with One’s Colleagues

There is probably no state in the Union that has a greater investment in agricultural research than Florida, save California. Like the latter, FL produces quite a number of high value-per-unit-area crops, such as tomatoes, strawberries, leafy vegetables, etc. Consumer and environmental pressures a fostering innovation in environmentally sustainable production practices. This does not mean that pesticides are not used but that the applications are much more tailored than they used to be. Plant parasitic nematodes are a major problem, more so since soil-fumigation with MeBr is no longer an option. By some accounts there are 10 species, which cause major damage and numerous others that may develop into one. Over the last decade, nematologists have come to realize that laboratory and greenhouse studies are of limited value and that critical studies should be conducted in the field. Furthermore, unlike a somewhat common weed scientist procedure, ‘seeding’ a field with nematodes is a frowned- upon practice. That creates a whole host of problems that might not exist otherwise. Some of those are (1) dealing with natural abundances; (2) dealing with unknown spatial variation; (3) inability to assess this spatial variation prior to the initiation of an experiment; (4) non-detection of a nematode at the initial sampling at stand establishment; etc. pp. I would like to talk about some these problems and what ‘solutions’ consulting statisticians might offer. I’ll begin the presentation with a case study of published research, where I was able to get a hold of the original data for that publication. I hope this presentation will lead to some discussion and might even initiate some collaborative research. I need all the help I can get.