I'm wondering about how we can determine the suitable number of plant samples we are going to collect in farmer's fields (in on-farm research) in slope lands. Thank you in advance for your recommendation!
Plant samples have to be taken in such a way that should represent entire gradient of the slope since the growth of plants will be hugely dependent upon slope gradients vis-a- vis orientation of sun affecting exposure of length of photoperiod .
In slopy lands, you have to be doubly careful that crop performance evaluation has to be on the basis of hill top, plateau and valley or base of the slope , could be geomorphologically piedmont and pediment surface ...
Plant samples have to be taken in such a way that should represent entire gradient of the slope since the growth of plants will be hugely dependent upon slope gradients vis-a- vis orientation of sun affecting exposure of length of photoperiod .
Thanks much for all your kind recommendation! Actually what I am thinking is that whether any standard for determining the number of samples in each farm in slope land? For instance with the farm area of 5000 m2, with 57 rows of cowpea, the shape of the farm is not important, so how many samples can we decide to take?