What does it mean when we say "G2 does contract research (CR)"? Well, we do many kinds of things, just like most start-ups. The next few posts will try and describe the breadth of CR services which G2 provides to the horticultural industries.
We are horticultural-scientists-for-hire. A large portion of our annual CR workload is confidential comparison trials. As simple as that statement is to make, nonetheless, each research trial seems to have its own unique identity.
Confidential means just that. We conduct our trials in a secure, isolated location: our research farm in central PA. The farm is fenced to control access. Visitors to the trials are accompanied by one of the G2 team while they are on-site. Access to the research trials is limited by client: as a G2 client, you only have access to your varieties and the appropriate experimental controls. In the greenhouses, we further isolate the trials by zones and privacy screens where appropriate. Similarly, in the field, privacy screening is used as needed, but we attempt to isolate each client's projects in specific plots, and then separate the plots by enough distance that a visitor in one plot cannot observe details of what is occurring in an adjacent plot. That said, unless otherwise instructed, we do not attempt to control ALL visibility between adjacent plots. For example, you might be able to see that there are tomatoes in the plot adjacent to the one in which your trial is grown, but you are not going to be able to observe detailed differences between individual entries in that adjacent trial.
Confidential also means that we make a significant investment in training our staff in G2's confidentiality practices. Most of these are relatively simple. For instance, our seasonal employees might know that we are growing many lettuce varieties for a client, but they would not know the client's identity. They might even know why we are conducting the trial, if this is relevant to a particular task, but they would not be given access to information which we and the client would consider to be confidential.
Confidential trials may be of your varieties in comparison to those of your competitor. They may be of your experimental varieties to your existing varieties. Or, you may choose to trial your breeding lines with us to determine how they perform in our Northeastern US location, which is likely to be very different from your other trialing locations. This could enable you to choose better F1 combinations, or at a minimum, choose combinations which may be more consistent in performance across environments.
Comparison is the key to a research trial, and the intent of a comparison trial is that you will be able to gather unique data about the performance of your experimental varieties both in our central PA location (when compared to other locations) and in reference to control varieties (typically varieties of known performance, or varieties expected to be "industry standards."
For those firms which do not maintain research facilities in the Northeastern U.S., our location in central PA provides a unique opportunity in which to conduct confidential comparison trials.
For perennial crops, you should know that G2's research farm is located on the line between USDA Zone 6a and 5b. Over the past decade, the farm has only rarely seen temperatures below 0F. However, a few weeks ago, early in the winter of 2008/2009, we dipped to minus-12F on one particularly bitter cold night. Our location in the Buffalo Run Valley (there's a small stream called Buffalo Run at the base of the mountain, about 1500 ft away) is also quite windy. We expect that exposed locations are going to perform more like a Z5B site, while protected locations are going to behave as Z6a.
We conduct greenhouse as well as field trials. The G2 research greenhouses are divided into eight separately-controlled environmental zones. We recently completed a large poinsettia comparison trial in which three adjacent zones were run at "industry standard" average daily temperatures (i.e., for poinsettia production, this was 70F); 65F; and 62F. Minimum night temperatures in the three zones were 68F, 63F, and 58F, respectively. We could maintain these differences in adjacent zones without problem. Charts of the temperature data were essentially flat for each zone.
What kind of available capacity does G2 have for 2009? Greenhouse space is already tight for the spring, but we currently have space available for the fall and winter. Field space is available, both under shade (we've got 30,000 SF of shade structure available), and in open research plots. Maximum available field space is about 5A, including a new 1A organic/sustainable plot we are converting from pasture to research plot once the ground thaws in the spring.
Perennial crop trials need to be planned well in advance, but we have strip-plots available for perennials, both herbaceous and perennial.
Please contact Kelly Uchneat to discuss your trialing needs. We look forward to responding to your Requests for Proposal (RFPs) re confidential comparison trials.
