Practical statistics and experimental design for plant and crop science /A

Abstract

This book introduces students to the important role of biometry in applied plant science research. Because many readers will have little prior knowledge of biological statistics, the first five chapters are used to summarise the basic principles which underpin simple statistical concepts. Although a more advanced treatise is provided in later chapters, the mathematical theory underpinning the techniques described is mainly ignored. Instead, the text provides some description and justification of the most important calculations which are widely used in statistics testing, and a detailed review of computer output which is now commonly presented by students in their dissertations. For each output an interpretation is given, and for many, how most entries can be found from a hand calculator. A novel feature of the book is the inclusion of examples showing how the sums of squares for the various terms in the most popular analysis of variance models are partitioned without using algebra.