Progress 03/01/21 to 02/28/25
Outputs
Target Audience:For the project period, we reached two target audiences through release of our project data tools for Pacific Northwest wheat variety trial data. 1. The agricultural research community was reached through release of the wheat database. This was presented at the annual meetings of the American Society of Agronomy in 2024. This audience consists of agronomists, crop geneticists, soil scientists, and crop scientists in different career stages from undergraduate to emeritus. We were invited by the T3 Triticeae Toolbox to add our data to their database. 2. We also reached Pacific Northwest producers through release of the wheat database and beta versions of the phone application. The app was shared with Idaho wheat producers for feedback. This audience consists of small grains producers who farm in Idaho, Oregon and/or Washington and other people that support this industry (e.g. extension educators, equipment and supplies companies, other governmental agency officials). 3. Members of the general public were also reached through our project website (www.westernagdata.org) and through coverage in local news outlets including the Farm Bureau, the Lewiston Tribune and the Idaho Wheat Commission. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In August of 2024, Emily Galvin, a technician for this project, attended the Posit PBC conference in Seattle, Washington. This is a premier conference for R and python programmers who work in data science. Emily's attendance of the conference and a one-day workshop associated with the workshop raised her skill set and confidence in R programming. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In the last year, the data were dispersed to research communities by sharing the data the the T3/Triticeae Database. The data were also distributed to the target producers audiences by attending the annual Tri-State Grain Growers' Meeting held November 19-21 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. We also requested and received and additional funding from the Idaho Barley Comission for 2024-2025 to launch a barley version of our mobile phone app. In the application process, we cotinued to reach and inform our target audience of our work, outputs and how it can support small grains producers in the Pacific Northwest. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
All goals and objectives have been achieved during the four years this project has been funded. In our final year of the project, we finalized the phone app, completed curation and upload of all remaining data, and trained all project members in usage of the commercial database specific for variety testing, Genovix.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2025
Citation:
Piaskowski JL. 2025. Coefficient of Variation and Variety Testing Field Trials. SCC-33 Multi-state Project for variety testing. Feb 3, 2025 (Melbourne, FL and online).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Piaskowski JL. 2024. Coefficient of variation and variety testing field trials. Conference on Applied Statistics in Agriculture and Natural Resources. May 13-16, 2024, Ames, IA.
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Progress 03/01/23 to 02/29/24
Outputs
Target Audience:In the reporting period, we reached two target audiences through release of our projectdata tools for Pacific Northwest wheat variety trial data. 1. The agricultural research community was reached through release of the wheat database. This was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Agronomy. This audience consists of agronomists, crop geneticists, soil scientists, and crop scientists in different career stages from undergraduate to emeritus. We were invited by the T3 Triticeae Toolboxto add our data to their database. 2. We also reached Pacific Northwest producers through release of the wheat database and beta versions of the phone application. The appwas shared with Idaho wheat producers for feedback. This audience consists of small grains producers who farm in Idaho, Oregon and/or Washington and other people that support this industry (e.g. extension educators, equipment and supplies companies, other governmental agency officials). Members of the general public were also reached through our project website. This was fully revamped during the reporting period. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Emily Galvin, a technician who is responsible for project data curation, attended the Posit conference, an annual event focused on R programming, virtually. This conference has and continues to be a very important and valuable event communicatingnew developments in R the programming language and applied data science in the R ecosystem(R is the primary language used by this project for data curation). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Representatives from this project attended the Tri-State Grain Growers meeting, the premier annual event for small grain producers in Idaho, Oregon and Washington. We also communicated directly with regional commodity groups: the Idaho Wheat Commission, the Washington Grains Commission and the Oregon Wheat Commission. ? What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During the next (and final) project reporting period, we plan to launch the remaining publicweb databases for barley, canola and cool-season legumes. This involvesfully populating our internal Genovix instance with raw data from variety testing trials and using that data to populate the public web interface. The web interfaces need to be constructed, following the template established for the wheat database. These data willalso be staticallysummarized across multiple conditions and presented in an interactive phone app, using the base code developed for the wheat phone app. We will finalize the phone app for release after receiving feedback from our industry partners (currently solicited). We are also working to transition this project to be managed by the regional variety testing leaders who have been participating in this project. These individuals will be responsible for data upload and regular data maintenance so the project can continue once our NIFA funding ends.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1 was met during previous project reporting periods. In the reporting project period, we completedmany aspects of Objective 2. The wheat and canola internal databases (using the commercial software 'Genovix') was fully populated with wheat and canola data. We have begun to add the barley variety testing data. We met objective 3 goals by launching the public wheat web interface and launching a beta version of a phone app (available for the iPhone and Android phones) showcasing small grains variety testing results.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Piaskowski, J. L., Galvin, E., Marshall, J., Schroeder, K. L., Walsh, O. S., Finkelnburg, D., Davis, J. B., Graebner, R., Neely, C. B., & Jones, S. S. (2023) Tools and Computing Infrastructure for a Wheat Variety Testing Datahub [Abstract]. ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting, St. Louis, MO. https://scisoc.confex.com/scisoc/2023am/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/149882
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Piaskowski, J. L., Galvin, E., Tay, J. (2023) R Packages for Curating Agricultural Data Sets [Abstract]. ASA, CSSA, SSSA International Annual Meeting, St. Louis, MO. https://scisoc.confex.com/scisoc/2023am/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/149956
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Progress 03/01/22 to 02/28/23
Outputs
Target Audience:We have two major target audiences: (1) researchers in agriculture and other adjacent sciences, and (2) industry representatives such as producers, crop consultants, food processors, packing housing, et cetera. Last year, we officially branded this project as "WAVE": Western Agricultural Variety Explorer". During the reporting report, we had three major outreach events: We attended the 2022 Tri-State Grain Growers meeting (https://www.wawg.org/convention/), held in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho in December, 2022. This is an important regional event for producers and industry representatives in grain production from Idaho, Oregon and Washington. In that event, we provided a public face to the project, providing updates and information and receiving feedback and/or suggestions from our primary stakeholders. This was attended by project Co-PI's Julia Piaskowski, Juliet Marshall, Ryan Graebner, Kurt Schroeder and Clark Neely. The primary audience we reached at this event was industry stakeholders (several hundred attend this convention). The second event we attended was the Pacific Northwest Wheat Quality Council, also held in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho in January, 2023. Project lead PI Julia Piaskowski was invited to speak at a panel regarding how the WAVE database funded by this grant will support challenges in improving wheat end-use quality. The primary audience we reached at this event were researchers. We also reached both researchers and industry stakeholders through a regional extension publication, Dryland Field Day Abstracts (https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/3122/2022/09/FDA-2022-complete.pdf), a joint publication of Washington State University, University of Idaho and Oregon State University, providing research highlights relevant to regional producers. We also requested funds from the Northwest Potato Research Consortium (https://www.nwpotatoresearch.com/) and spoke at their annual meeting about the project. They ultimately declined to fund the addition of Pacific Northwest potato variety testing data to our database. However, the potato variety testing team remains interested in a collaboration with WAVE. Changes/Problems:Throughout the project, we have struggled to find a good database fit for our needs. In the first year of the project, we pivoted from using a custom in-house database to Breedbase, a commercial product from Cornell University. This database ultimately did not serve our needs well, so after considering several different options, we decided to use Genovix. This is the newest product from Agronomix, a company with a long history of providing variety testing databases to public and private plant breeding programs. While no commercial database solution will be a perfect fit, this one does appear to be meeting our needs thus far. It is more expensive than other variety testing solutions, but ultimately, the costs are reasonable and affordable when shared across several programs. We think the improvement in efficiency is worth the additional costs. The costs at this moment are $15,000 per year for 5 concurrent licenses. We can scale up or down as needed depending on the number of participating variety testing programs and the costs will adjust linearly.? Overall, the project is proceeding slightly slower than originally planned for, although there is regular progress. The database difficulties are a major cause of this delay, along with the general unpredictable nature of data curation. We plan to apply for an extension of the project period of one year. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Both the lead Project PI and staff hired for this project (Emily Galvin) attended professional conferences for the R programming language that enabled them to listen to talks relevant to their work and meet other individuals doing similar work. Specifically, we attended the 2022 UseR! conference (https://user2022.r-project.org/), the 2022 R/Shiny Conference (https://appsilon.com/appsilon-shiny-conference-2022-announcement/, original conference website since taken down) and the 2022 RStudio::Conference (https://posit.co/blog/rstudio-conf-2022-is-open-for-registration/, original conference website since taken down). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We continue to use our website, www.westernagdata.org (also, .com and .net) to advertise our final product. As mentioned earlier in this report, we also attended 2 major regional events that we used to communicate project progress with key stakeholders and invite feedback from them. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The next year is primarily focused on Objectives 2 and 3. We have largely completed data assemblage and curation (although this is a never-ending task since new data are generated every year). The next step is populating the Genovix database instances with our curated data. This is largely completed for the wheat database. In this next year, we plan to launch the public facing aspects of the WAVE database, focusing on wheat first, and then moving on to the other crops (each having its own database). We will link the Genovix database app to the researcher portal for data querying and download, and to the industry app for data exploration. We are in the process of rebuilding the industry-focused app using Flutter, an open-source language for building mobile apps. Our goal is to have a public launch of the wheat variety testing data tools in WAVE in the next 6 to 9 months. As time allows, we also want to launch the other crop database tools. We also want to transition to a more sustainable funding model (i.e. one not reliant on obtaining Federal grants). Once we have a usable product, we will begin approaching the appropriate parties about long-term support of this project.? It is likely we will need one more year to finish aspects of this project such as finalizing the database launch, training variety testing manager on usage of Genovix, and final data curation. We have sufficient funds in the current project budget for a one-year extension.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
While objective 1 was largely completed in year one of the project, we continued to refine data standards in year two. We have cleaned the majority of the highest priority data: variety testing programs for wheat, barley, brassica oil seeds and cool-season legumes. We continue to pursue adjacent data that is second highest priority: disease rating and end-use quality data of the primary crops and variety testing data from Northern Utah (this was requested by Southern Idaho grain producers). Third level priority data includes other crops: alfalfa, potato and sugar beets. For objective 2, we had to change databases from Breedbase to Genovix because Genovix is a better fit for our data model, a more mature software product, and has more tools that the project PI's want. While it is more expensive than Breedbase, it's overall costs are reasonable and supportable when the project period ends. We have thus far constructed the wheat database. While not without challenges, Genovix ultimately provides a rich set of tools that help us meet our goals. For objective 3, we hired a graphic designer to redesign the website (www.westernagdata.org) and the industry-targeted app. That person provided a comprehensive collection of professional and user-friendly designs that we are working to implement. In this next year, we plan to launch the public facing aspects of this database, focusing on wheat first, and then moving on to the other crops (each having its own database).
Publications
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Progress 03/01/21 to 02/28/22
Outputs
Target Audience:We communicated with Idaho wheat growers through the Idaho Wheat Commission (June, 2021) about the project. We also reached regional pulse producers through the Dry Pea and Lentil Council scientific advisory board (September, 2021). We were able to communicate with regional small grains producers at the Tri-State Grain Growers conference held in Spokane, Washington(Nov/Dec, 2021). We also gained valuable insight fromgrowers and industry representatives from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho for wheat, barley, pulses and canola who serve on our projectadvisory board. Changes/Problems:We had originally planned to develop our own database system (that is, a schema, user interface, API, and set of upload tools), but we decided to use an existing open-source product, BreedBase (https://breedbase.org/). There are several advantages to this approach: BreedBase was written for breeding and genetics programs. It was developed for our situation of many institutions wanting to share data through a common interfacewhile maintaining separate workspaces. The database design team has already encountered and solved many of the problems we are experiencing. They have already developed tools we need: data upload, an API, error-checking, etc. It is quite affordable compared to other database solutions available. It is 'BrAPI-compliant', meaning that it will work with other software solutions that follow this data standard (notably, FieldBook). It's a mature product with an extensive user base that has tested the product. It's also under continual development to keep apace with advances and changes in computing. As an open-source product, we can transfer it to our own servers; there is no vendor lock-in. There are drawback to this software: itspermissions levels are crude; and to some extent, it isslightly too full featured for a variety testing program (for example, we don't need to track pedigree information). We have developed some work-arounds to deal with these drawbacks. Weighing all the advantages and disadvantagesa, we do think this is the best solution to meet project needs. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project requires continual self-guided training in R programmingfor the datacurators and project director. The project director and project curator attended the 2021 R Users Conference (held online). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Presentations Given: Pacific Northwest Variety Testing DataHub. Presentation to the U.S. Dry Pea & Lentil Council (online).September 2, 2021. Idaho Wheat Variety Testing Database, an update. Presentation to the Idaho Wheat Commission (Moscow, ID). June 7, 2021. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Objective 1 is an ongoing effort that is continually refined with additions of new data. We will continue to incorporate new data into the project and use that to update our controlled vocabularies. We are seeking additional data that supports this project such as disease resistance data, crop end-use quality data and data from local private industry. We will curate canola and pulse data. Objective 2: We will launch 'BreedBase' database instances for wheat, barley and canola and populate it with data. We may be able to accomplish this for other crops (time permitting). Objective 3: We will connect the industry-focused app with the running BreedBase instances. We also plan several improvements to the core app code: load testing of the app along with accompanyingcode improvements to improve performance, writeunit tests of the code to enable automated checking of the app code, and employing a UX designer to advise us on usability and overall design. We also plan to implement suggested changes from the advisory board which include minor design changes and major additions to the functionality.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1: Datastandards were established and refined for wheat and barley. We continued to developed controlled vocabularies that define acceptable variables and allowable values for each variable. Objective 2: Data were assembled from 6 of the 7 target variety testing programs. All programs were trained in minimal data standards expected. We decided to use an open-sourcedatabase solution, 'BreedBase' for data organization. This is a mature project that remain under continual development and use across a wide range of breeding and genetic programs with needs similar to our own. Objective 3: We produced an updated version of the industry-focused app. We assembled anadvisory board representing small grains and oilseeds agricultural interested throughout the Pacific Northwest and met; this advisory board provided valuable feedback on the app and suggestions for how to improve it.
Publications
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