Analysis of Combined Experiments: Why, How, and What Does It Mean?.

Experimental design, analysis, and interpretation are essential components field research. Although field studies often include multiple locations and years, researcher all too often are lacking the knowledge and skills to properly analyze their data to test the hypotheses of interest. This presentation is intended to provide a framework for researchers to design and analyze combined experiments that will provide results and conclusions that directly address their research objectives. Common examples of analyses of combined experiments will be presented using SAS GLM and MIXED procedures. Results of these analyses will be compared for balanced and unbalanced datasets to provide recommendations for analysis that are both appropriate and practical. Interpretation of descriptive statistics and hypothesis tests generated in SAS printouts will be discussed for a target audience of readers and authors of manuscripts published in ASA/CSSA/SSSA journals.