DOE for agricultural applications

[#1]

Hi,

I will be soon assisting colleagues in creating a DOE design for planting different crops and looking at yield. It looks like, at this point, the only factors are the crops (16 varieties) and they need to add field blocks / plots to account for differences like elevation,...etc. I have JMP pro, but never used it for Agriculture DOE and was wondering if you have recommendations or resources I can look at. From my search, I saw that you can do this in two different ways,  add a blocking factor or a hard-to-change factor (whole plots). Not sure which is more appropriate.

Also, is there a visual in JMP for these land plot designs? I played around a little with the distribution platform, but not sure if there's a better way.

[#2]

Welcome to the community. I think that the hard-to-change factor is appropriate in your case. It will lead to the creation of 'whole plots' in which the hard-to-change factor level remains fixed. This condition leads to a bi-level of randomization in your design. In fact, it was the agricultural origins of DOE and the common restriction on randomization that often manifested as different plots of land or whole plots.