Maximizing the effectiveness of a plant analysis unit

Abstract

Summary The ability to undertake routine chemical analyses of plant tissues is limited by analysing separately each replicate sample. It is shown that the variability of such analyses is a property of the tissue concerned and is not trial-specific and there should be only a small loss of precision if samples are bulked prior to analysis. The variance of such a determination can be calculated from previously established variance components and the number of analyses required reduced considerably.