Agronomic Field Trial Management

Data collection and analysis software

Field Trial Management Platform

QuickTrials is a leading Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for planning, executing, monitoring and analysing agricultural field trials. It’s an end-to-end solution that reduces the cost of conducting trials, helps to speed up innovation, and is used by major organisations around the world.

Crop protection to increase yields

Plan

Crop protection to increase yields

Collect

Crop protection to increase yields

Monitor

Crop protection to increase yields

Analyse

Crop protection to increase yields

Insight → Innovate

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

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.

Crop protection to increase yields

Agronomic 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.

Field trial management with excel

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 innovation system

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!

Managing field trials and on-farm site locations with satellite maps and GPS

The QuickTrials data warehouse

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.

QuickTrials Data Warehouse

QuickTrials Web Application

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.

Field trial management solution to manage staff and analyse results

QuickTrials Mobile App

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

 Field staff can see the visits required for each trial site

See the sites and visits required to measure the needed traits

Data can be inspected with an overview screen, to spot any irregularities

The overview makes it easy to spot missing data. Expand and collapse details as needed

Helper images can be used to assist field staff when entering data

Enter measurements with the help of explanation images whenever required

Documents can be added to provide field staff with additional instructions or information

Documents can be attached to trials to provide additional information or tools

QuickTrials on Tablets

iOS (iPad) and Android tablets can be used when larger screens are desired.

Entering trial data on a tablet

Observation playback

QuickTrials allows you to see on a map where each observation was recorded, in the sequence it was captured.
You can watch it like a video or step through each observation individually.

Documents can be added to provide field staff with additional instructions or information

Observations collected by various field staff are shown as different coloured map pins. As the observations appear on the map, the corresponding Visit is also highlighted. This provides an easy way to see which observations were related to the harvest visit for example.

Types of trials suitable for QuickTrials

QuickTrials works with all types of field trials, including:

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.

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.

Trialing setups

QuickTrials also supports all types of trialing setups including:

Small plot trials

 Field staff can see the visits required for each trial site

Often used for research

On-farm trials

 Field staff can see the visits required for each trial site

Utilises farmers equipment and land for greater variability and commercial validation

Large-scale commercial trials

 Field staff can see the visits required for each trial site

Large trials to increase statistical significance of results

Trials can be performed with internal staff, external resources (eg. farmers) or outsourced completely (eg. CRO’s).

Trials across different regions

QuickTrials effortlessly handles the challenges of conducting trials across different regions or countries

Multiple languages

 Field staff can see the visits required for each trial site

Different User Interface languages as well as Data languages (eg. crop, trait or product names), even within the same trial

Multiple input units

 Field staff can see the visits required for each trial site

Plots may be defined in acres, hectares or m2. Products dosages in gallons or litres, etc. QuickTrials can calculate the resulting yield in a standardised unit for analysis

Permissions

 Field staff can see the visits required for each trial site

Different sites, of the same multi-site trial, can be assigned to different people. Field staff only see the trials and sites they are assigned to.

Trials can be performed with internal staff, external resources (eg. farmers) or outsourced completely (eg. CRO’s).

QuickTrials is available in 13 languages

  • English
  • German
  • French
  • Italian
  • Spanish
  • Brazilian Portuguese
  • Arabic
  • Romanian
  • Hungarian
  • Polish
  • Czech
  • Slovak
  • Bulgarian
  • English
  • German
  • French
  • Italian
  • Spanish
  • Brazilian Portuguese
  • Arabic
  • Romanian
  • Hungarian
  • Polish
  • Czech
  • Slovak
  • Bulgarian
QuickTrials is available around the world in different languages

Consistency across trials

QuickTrials helps to ensure consistency of trial execution and data, across all of your regions and countries of operation.

 Field staff can see the visits required for each trial site
  • Global library for trait definitions, treatments and other measurement parameters 
  • Templates for easy reuse and consistency across trials.
  • Document archive for each trial to capture and distribute documents related to each individual trial

Conducting field experiments with QuickTrials leads to faster setups and more consistency, making it easier to compare data later on.

Features

Browser based trial management solution

BROWSER BASED

No need to install or distribute desktop software

Field trial app for Android and iOS

iOS and ANDROID

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

Manage access control for field staff and back office employees

ACCESS CONTROL

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

Flexible data entry to suit individual workflows

FLEXIBLE ENTRY

Measurements can be filtered to match user workflows

Offline trial data capture

OFFLINE!

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

Analyse trial results immediately with built-in and 3rd party tools

ANALYTICS

Powerful analytics tools can be used without manual transformation

Integrate QuickTrials with internal systems

API’S

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

Enhance your analysis with weather data add-ons

WEATHER SERVICE

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

Experimental Trial Design

QuickTrials helps users to design trials simply and effectively, so result are statistically meaningful and easy to analyse. Features such as predefined plot layouts (eg. randomised, split plot, latin square), anonymisation codes and automatic tracking of control plots, greatly simplify experimental trial design and analysis.

QuickTrials also facilitates Good Experimental Practice (GEP) by ensuring trials are conducted in a consistent way with all the necessary meta data.

Latin square example of experimental trial design
Plot layouts in latin square arrangement for field trial

Key Technologies

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.

Hypercube visualisation

Your Time Is Valuable

There are better ways to spend it than collating data

Laptop, phone and coffee cup

QuickTrials has Something for Everyone

Field
Staff

Field staff

Trial
Coordinators

Trial coordinator or manager

Data Analysts
/ Scientists

Researcher or data scientist

IT
manager

IT manager and information system department

Business
Owners

Business owner and executive management
QuickTrials management software
Field staff collecting data

Field Staff

QuickTrials is very convenient for field staff to use with a clear, simple interface that helps guide the user at every step. An overview screen allows the field staff to check their data and see what else needs to be collected. Trials are automatically kept up-to-date and photos or comments can be added whenever needed.

Trial coordinators planning and managing activities

For Trial Coordinators

Trial Coordinators use the QuickTrials management system to create, plan and execute trials. New trials can be set-up quickly using predefined traits and trial parameters, templates or previous trials. Coordinators can then assign the trials to specific Field Staff and schedule the visits to each of the sites at key growth stages.
As data is collected by Field Staff the Coordinators can see the information in near real-time, allowing them to check data quality, validate information (using GPS, overviews and charts) and ensure there are no gaps or inconsistencies. Once everything has been recorded correctly the Trial Coordinators hand-off the data in a clear process by setting the trial to “Validated”.

Researchers and data scientists analysing trial results

For Data Analysts / Scientists

Since data analysis is such an important topic we’ve made QuickTrials as flexible as possible, so Data Analysts / Researches and Scientists have more options when it comes to analysis. You can use the built-in charts or external tools if you prefer. Below are some ways in which the data can be analysed:

  • Using the built-in reports
  • Exporting the data to Excel (CSV file)
  • Using 3rd party tools such as R, Tableau, Power BI or Google Data Studio. Essentially any statistics or reporting tool that integrates with Google BigQuery*
  • Exporting to JSON or AVRO formats*
  • Direct access through a programmatic API*

* Depending upon subscription plan

QuickTrials provides all of your trial data in a structured way that is easy to analyse. A Global Trait Library makes it possible to compare traits across many different trials, seasons and regions. Information stored in QuickTrials includes spatial data and can be directly analysed by most 3rd party tools via access to the BigQuery cloud SQL database. Data can also be expanded further by your own means (eg. importing information from data loggers, soil samples, etc) and incorporated into the analysis now or in the future.

IT managers and Information System departments managing software solutions

For IT Manager

QuickTrials is loved by IT Managers for many reasons, including:

  • The field trial management solution is built on modern, reliable, technologies that provide almost infinite scalability thanks to Google’s Big Querry
  • It’s secure thanks to our use of SSL, good security practises, secure logins via Google authentication, periodic penetration tests and secure hosting providers such as Google and AWS that provide both physical and logical (encryption during transit and at rest) protection for your data.
  • We follow General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines for regulatory compliance
  • Data is structured and can be referenced across different geographic regions
  • QuickTrials provides one of the best API experiences with simple, direct, secure access to one of the worlds most utilised database technologies. This makes integration a breeze and allows QuickTrials data to be used in many more ways within an organisation.
  • Flexible data access management on BigQuery data by Google IAM
  • The possibility to add your own data to BigQuery (Eg. automated loggers) for more integrated queries if needed
Executive management and business owners growing the business

For Business Owners

QuickTrials is appreciated by Business Owners because it represents a low-cost investment that saves money with every trial conducted. The simple pricing model doesn’t depend on the number of users working with the platform so additional field staff and partners can be included without incurring additional costs. This makes it easy to involve more people during peak growing seasons.

The data always belongs to your business and can be accessed anytime it’s needed. Due to the increased data validation at capture, logging and addition of GPS coordinates, the data is more thoroughly vetted and trustable. Any discrepancies are easier to spot and can be traced back if needed, simplifying compliance demands.  The centralised, structured data ensures longevity of information which contributes to value in both the short and long term. Future trials can be compared more easily against historical data, unlocking further insights. The standardised API’s ensure there is no data lock-in and if development is needed then QuickTrials also provide custom software development services.

QuickTrials is a powerful solution that provides a global overview of trialing activities across the company. It ensures a consistent process is followed and leads to trial data that is future oriented, easy to manage and grows in usefulness over time.

Top 6 benefits of QuickTrials

1 Improved data quality

Improve the quality of collected data with validation, GPS and photos

Data quality improves thanks to validation, photos linked to measurements and GPS time stamps

2 React sooner

Identify potential issues earlier and react sooner

Trial managers see information as its collected and can react earlier to any data gaps if needed

3 Saves time and money

QuickTrials saves time and money

Considerable time and effort is saved, which lowers the cost of conducting field trials

4 Powerful analysis possibilities

Trial results can be analysed with powerful tools

All trial data ends up in a structured data warehouse, leading to powerful analytics possibilities

5 Low investment

It is easy to get started with QuickTrials since it doesn't require a large upfront investment

No software to install and maintain on PC’s. Requires relatively little training to get results

6 Faster innovation

QuickTrials leads to faster innovation

Trial results are available sooner, leading to shorter feedback loops and faster innovation

Impressions

“QuickTrials has given us the opportunity to gather real time data from the field and provides us with a standardized platform for reporting and data analysis across multiple projects.”

AgCall

Ken Robertson

“We handle a large number of trials and QuickTrials enables us to cost-effectively enter data in the field, analyze results consistently and share with our stakeholders immediately.”

oneAcre

Herbert Mudzamba

“QuickTrials allows us to digitize the process of field trialing from protocol creation to data capture, validation and export. Functionality available to users is based on their role in the overall process, which makes the tool simple and easy to use”

Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture logo

Nathalie Vignaux

“We are delighted with QuickTrials and it’s integration into our business systems. The software ensures a quick and easy method of recording our trial data in the field. Results are easy to access and simple to interpret with meaningful data for us and our customers.”

Agility

Rachel Hart

“Breeders now start calling me for the results as soon as the trial ends. Before it would take months before we even had data”

Bejo

Adrián Carvajal Alvízar

“QuickTrials provides a cost-effective way to streamline operations, improve quality and build up our data assets”

Cropnuts

Jeremy Cordingley

See how customers are using QuickTrials

See how customers are using QuickTrials

Check out the subscription plans

Check out the subscription plans


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