Online Farm Trials (OFT) – the past, present and future
- Authors: Robinson, Nathan , Dahlhaus, Peter , Feely, Paul , Light, Kate , MacLeod, Andrew
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Proceedings of the 19th Australian Society of Agronomy Conference,25-29 August 2019, Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia
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- Description: Online Farm Trials (OFT) (www.farmtrials.com.au) is a free web-based resource and trial discovery system that contains more than 7,100 trials from 76 different organisations from across Australia. Since its inception in 2013, OFT has developed via a collaborative approach with grower groups, research organisations, agricultural experts and grains industry organisations. This ensures the outcomes are highly relevant, practical and beneficial for growers. Users can view, analyse and export grains research data as well as compare trials based upon historical, geographic and crop-specific search filters. Current developments include seasonally relevant collections of trials to highlight priority topics and aid on-farm decision making. To meet the future needs of industry stakeholders, system developments are planned to include expanded trial research information access, foster innovation through publishing and promoting active trials and enhance trial data standards and quality. **Please note that there are multiple Federation University authors for this article, including the name of the first 5 and also including “Rob Milne, Julie Parker, Helen Thompson, Judi Walters and Ben Wills" is provided in this record**
The Australian digital online farm trials database increases the quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in grains crop research
- Authors: Walters, Judi , Light, Kate
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article , Review
- Relation: Crop and Pasture Science Vol. 72, no. 10 (2021), p. 789-800
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- Description: Synthesis and analysis of past cropping research can provide valuable information to direct future decisions around crop management. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are considered gold standards in the synthesis and analysis of scientific research because they distil large amounts of information about complex issues, provide a summary of knowledge to date, and identify knowledge gaps. However, several issues concerning the methodologies employed to conduct systematic reviews have been identified; among them is the risk of publication bias when a review relies too heavily on 'white' literature from published academic sources and in so doing fails identify relevant 'grey' literature. Grey literature is inherently difficult to identify and collect, but forms a large portion of information available in many fields including agricultural-based research within Australia. The Online Farm Trials (OFT) database is a digital database of crop research field trial data from across Australia that has the potential for use as a discipline-specific source of grey literature to inform systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Using a case study approach to investigate the amount of information available on time of sowing (sowing date) on crop yield across Australia, we demonstrate that the OFT database provides easy access to transparent and reproducible search results similar to other commonly used academic databases. © 2021 Journal Compilation
Using agricultural metadata : a novel investigation of trends in sowing date in on-farm research trials using the online farm trials database
- Authors: Walters, Judi , Light, Kate , Robinson, Nathan
- Date: 2021
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: F1000Research Vol. 9, no. (2021), p.1305-1305
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- Description: Background: A growing ability to collect data, together with the development and adoption of the FAIR guiding principles, has increased the amount of data available in many disciplines. This has given rise to an urgent need for robust metadata. Within the Australian grains industry, data from thousands of on-farm research trials (Trial Projects) have been made available via the Online Farm Trials (OFT) website. OFT Trial Project metadata were developed as filters to refine front-end database searches, but could also be used as a dataset to investigate trends in metadata elements. Australian grains crops are being sown earlier, but whether on-farm research trials reflect this change is currently unknown. Methods: We investigated whether OFT Trial Project metadata could be used to detect trends in sowing dates of on-farm crop research trials across Australia, testing the hypothesis that research trials are being sown earlier in line with local farming practices. The investigation included 15 autumn-sown, winter crop species listed in the database, with trial records from 1993 to 2019. Results: Our analyses showed that (i) OFT Trial Project metadata can be used as a dataset to detect trends in sowing date; and (ii) cropping research trials are being sown earlier in Victoria and Western Australia, but no trend exists within the other states. Discussion/Conclusion: Our findings show that OFT Trial Project metadata can be used to detect trends in crop sowing date, suggesting that metadata could also be used to detect trends in other elements such as harvest date. Because OFT is a national database of research trials, further assessment of metadata may uncover important agronomic, cultural or economic trends within or across the Australian cropping regions. New information could then be used to lead practice change and increase productivity within the Australian grains industry. © 2021 Walters J et al.