Integrated breeding platform - Plant breeding software
IBP NEWS

The IB Fieldbook, finally!

March 1, 2013

After many months of intensive development work, numerous testing sessions, invaluable feedback from potential users and several redesigns of structure and functionality, the Integrated Breeding FieldBook is here at long last – a tool that will in time greatly enhance the quality of phenotypic data on which critical breeding decisions are based.

This easy-to-use tool will help breeders electronically design field trials and generate fieldbooks and labels through simple wizard-assisted steps.  In conjunction with the Samsung Galaxy tablet recommended for field use, it will empower the breeders to efficiently and accurately capture phenotyping data and save it in a local crop database, before conveniently submitting the same for analysis.

The IB Fieldbook version 1.0.0 enables the user to

  • Create a list of entries (or germplasm list) by importing it from an MS-Excel file 
  • Generate a fieldbook for single-factor trials with entry as factor by selecting a template with default traits; or, selecting a germplasm list from the database or Excel file; or generating the design layout using the algorithm in Agricolae.
  • Generate plot labels
  • Export the generated field book as an MS-Excel file for data collection, a  file that can also be opened in Polaris or DocumentsToGo which are spreadsheet applications available in the Samsung Galaxy Tablet
  • Export the generated field book as a text file (in csv format)  for Fieldroid/Fieldlog applications
  • Import the collected data back to the IB Fieldbook
  • Save the fieldbook data.

This tool was developed by Hector Sanchez-Villeda and his team at CIMMYT, building on ideas from the CIMMYT Maize Fieldbook and the ICIS Workbook from IRRI.  The Integrated Breeding FieldBook resolves the issues of user friendliness and management of trial data that plagued these two older tools. The IB Field book will be farther enhanced to handle multi-factorial trials, deliver an improved label format, handle more sophisticated field plan lay-outs and facilitate more varied template creation.

The fieldbook is downloadable from the dedicated IBP Portal page by registered logged-on users.

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