ABSTRACT
Statistics is an important tool for biological research because it provides an objective, nonbiased way to evaluate experimental treatments. This chapter discusses the application of completely randomized design (CRD), randomized complete block design (RCBD), and split-plot designs in plant tissue culture research. In RCBDs, treatments are grouped into blocks that contain at least one replicate from each treatment. A RCBD is useful when some variation is caused by something other than the imposed treatments. The split-plot design is typically used when two treatment factors are superimposed on each other. The easiest way to compare treatment means is to rank them in ascending or descending order and pick the best treatment. The problem with this method is that natural variation that occurs within a treatment is not considered. There are many mean separation procedures that account for within treatment variation. These are standard error of the mean (SE), multiple comparison and multiple range tests, and regression analysis.
