Project overview
Historically, university or government-funded research and extension programs have generated most publicly available variety trial data. However, there is a growing lack of locally relevant variety trial data, especially for specialty vegetable crops. Data from seed companies may be biased due to commercial interests, and the value of data from the next nearest location compared to on-farm, regional, or global data is still unclear.
To address these challenges, the Vegetable Variety Navigator (VVN) was created in 2020. The VVN is a database of public variety trial results that can be analyzed and visualized to inform growers about how a particular vegetable variety might perform compared to others in their location, region, or globally. The VVN currently allows for yield and quality comparisons among varieties of broccoli, cucumber, and sweet pepper using a meta-analysis of data from 288 public variety trial sources worldwide.
Farmer takeaways
- The Vegetable Variety Navigator (VVN) decision-support tool integrates vegetable variety trial data to optimize crop yield and quality. Validation using recent on-farm trial data showed the VVN improved relative yield predictions for broccoli, cucumber, and sweet pepper.
- However, improvements are needed as the difference between observed and predicted yields was over 20% for all crops and prediction methods.
Project objectives and approach
Sixteen variety trials of broccoli, cucumber, and sweet pepper were conducted on five eastern Nebraska farms from 2020 to 2022 to evaluate the Vegetable Variety Navigator’s (VVN) ability to predict variety performance. Crops were organically managed, and ripe fruit was harvested, sorted, counted, and weighed.
The difference between observed relative yields from these trials and relative yield predictions from VVN data subsets was used to assess VVN accuracy and predictive potential.
Key findings
- Integrating vegetable variety trial data into a decision-support tool (VVN) can optimize crop yield and quality, especially in regions with limited data. Validation using 284 observations from 2020-2022 trials showed the VVN improved relative yield predictions for broccoli, cucumber, and sweet pepper by 21% to 51%.
- While the VVN increases grower confidence in variety selection, improvements are needed as the difference between observed and predicted yields was over 20% for all crops and prediction methods. Future accuracy enhancements could involve calculating relative yields within and among studies by crop type and environment.
- Regional-specific variety trial data is valuable for cucumbers, but not necessarily for broccoli or sweet pepper. The current Variety Variety Navigator (VVN) uses aridity index and soil texture for data filtering, but clustering data by climatic or geographic zones may improve yield predictions, especially for cucumbers. Citizen-science and crowd-sourced approaches may be more sustainable for generating region-specific data. Future VVN development will aim to integrate qualitative and quantitative data for more robust predictions.
Location
NebraskaCollaborators
Sam Wortman, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Region
North Central
Topic
Plant Breeding, Varieties, and Seeds
Category
Vegetables/Fruits
Year Published
2024
