QuickTrials - Agricultural Field Trial Management Software

The Drive to Produce More, with Less
Population pressure, reductions in arable land and climate change are some of the larger forces creating an urgent need to improve farm productivity.

This drives agricultural research and innovation in area such as:

• Plant Breeding and Biotechnology : Introducing varieties that yield more or have improved traits (eg. drought resistance)
• Crop Protection and Pest Management : Strategies to safeguard crops from pests and diseases while minimizing environmental impact.
• Precision Agriculture : Using technology and data analysis to optimize farming practices and resource use
• Soil Health : Maintaining and enhancing soil’s physical, chemical, and biological properties
• Sustainable Farming : Practices that balance productivity with environmental preservation

Field Trials
Most agricultural innovations require Field Trials to verify their effectiveness “in the real world” where changing soil, climatic conditions and other factors all have an impact.

Field Trials involve the collection of a lot of data, across many sites, and in many configurations. Field Trial Management is about designing effective trials, managing field staff, validating records, collating and normalising data and analysing the results.  It’s a process that consumes considerable time and effort.

Accelerating Innovation
QuickTrials is a field trial management system that speeds everything up by making the entire data collection, validation, and analysis process faster and simpler.

Instead of trial results only being available months after harvest, trial managers can see the performance of trials in near real-time as the data is being collected in the field. This faster feedback enables decisions to be taken earlier, which leads to quicker trialling iterations and improved innovation velocity.

Field Trial Management with QuickTrials
QuickTrials takes a new approach, using the latest technologies to streamline everything. Trials are defined using global templates and planning features, and data is then captured in the field using mobile phones or tablets.  The data is uploaded and available immediately making it possible to track progress and analyse data in near real-time.

There is no need to manually aggregate and transform data as everything is centralised and structured from the beginning. Trial coordinators can verify data as it’s being collected in the field, making it possible to spot inconsistencies or gaps before it’s too late.

The QuickTrials software is very flexible and powerful.  It works with any kind of crop and and trialing setup, ranging from small-plot efficacy trials through to on-farm trials or large-scale commercial effectiveness trials.  It’s suited for both research and commercial oriented trials, and data can be analyse in a variety of ways. Whatever the type of trial being conducted QuickTrials greatly improves the experience and process!

QuickTrials creates a powerful, centralised, data warehouse that becomes your single source of truth for all trial data across the company. It receives data from multiple sources and enables many types of analysis and integration.

The QuickTrials Web Application (accessed from any internet browser) is used to create trials, manage field staff, view results, etc., from a laptop or PC.

QuickTrials has native iOS (iPhone) and Android Apps making it possible to capture trial data from almost any phone

• Seed variety trials : Comparing yields, growth rate, resistance to pests or droughts, etc.
• Agrochemical trials : Testing efficacy and safety of fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides & fungicides
• Registration trials : Highly controlled trials for regulatory review of new seeds, products, etc.
• Integrated Pest Management (IPM) : Crop protection chemicals, biological controls, physical barriers.
• Cultural practise trials : Agricultural practises such as no-till vs conventional tillage, etc.
• Nutrient Management trials : Comparing the effects of different nutrient regimes or fertiliser protocols
• Biotechnology trials : Testing the performance, environmental impact, and safety of GMO crops.
• Water management trials : Optimising water use, irrigation methods, drought management strategies.
• Machinery and equipment trials : Performance, efficiency and suitability of new agricultural tools & machinery.
• Sustainability and Systems Trials : Organic farming, IPM, conservation agriculture or other holistic approaches.
• Climate-smart trials : Identifying the varieties and practises that are resilient to climate change.

BROWSER BASED
No need to install or distribute desktop software

iOS and ANDROID
App can be installed on iOS and Android mobile phones and tablet

ACCESS CONTROL
Field staff only see the trials they are authorised to participate in

FLEXIBLE ENTRY
Measurements can be filtered to match user workflows

OFFLINE!
Data can be captured offline and synced to the cloud whenever a network connection available

ANALYTICS
Powerful analytics tools can be used without manual transformation

API’S
API’s can be used to integrate trial data with other systems

Weather Service
An add-on that provides weather data for all of your sites.

QuickTrials utilises the latest technologies to provide a modern, effective solution that saves both time and money.

We use a multi-dimensional hypercube for data storage which allows for powerful analysis. Data collection also becomes simpler and more natural thanks to the hypercube. Trials can be conducted with as many dimensions as needed (Eg. site, variety, protocol) where each dimension can have any number of properties (Eg. site: name, location, manager). It then becomes simple to analyse the data in all sorts of ways to create insightful reports. Standard data warehouse operations such as roll-up, drill-down, slice and dice are all possible.

Under the hood QuickTrials uses Google’s BigQuery for storing data which provides a highly scalable, secure and enterprise ready cloud storage platform. This ensures a reliable way to store even the largest and most complex trial results while also making it easier to integrate trial data with other systems if needed.

• Improved data quality : Data quality improves thanks to validation, photos linked to measurements and GPS time stamps
• React sooner : Trial managers see information as its collected and can react earlier to any data gaps if needed
• Saves time and money : Considerable time and effort is saved, which lowers the cost of conducting field trials
• Powerful analysis possibilities : All trial data ends up in a structured data warehouse, leading to powerful analytics possibilities
• Low investment : No software to install and maintain on PC’s. Requires relatively little training to get results
• Faster innovation : Trial results are available sooner, leading to shorter feedback loops and faster innovation