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100 SEEDWORLD.COM DECEMBER 2015 weary eyes could skip a line or two and throw off the observations. Others might have a tablet or laptop on site and record the data to the sheets in the field. But even that can be a time-consuming process since Excel isnt designed for in-field data recording. On top of that those using spreadsheets will find that long-term observations will require mul- tiple tabs and sheets spreading the data out and making comparisons and analysis difficult. And if the breeder wants to take photos to go with the observations that all has to be kept organ- ized so that the photos can be downloaded from a device and later matched with the data recorded. With mobile web-based devices the photos taken in the field can be automatically paired with the data. You have a myriad of files that are very hard to audit and hard to reconcile if you want to analyze data. As a breeder you can spend hours if not days reconciling data before an analysis shares Oskar Laufer vice president of sales and busi- ness development for the Israel-based Phenome Networks Ltd. You would be surprised what com- panies are still using Excel spreadsheets to manage their data. The more sophisticated web-based systems allow those phenotyping the plants to make record observations in the field using a mobile device whether there is an Internet signal or not. Later when the device connects to the web the data recorded that day is uploaded into a database. Breeders could also run into problems if they are part of a collaboration or a company that is pheno- typing plants in multiple locations. If theyre using a system that uses spreadsheets or is not web-based all the data collected from those sites will have to be sorted and combined a painstaking process. Each breeder has his own way of working more or less says Ineke Leidelmeijer a commercial consultant for Netherlands-based Agro Business Solutions B.V. You can do your own tests and record your own data in your own way. If you have to compare it with another breeder it can be a challenge. When youre the only breeder this is OK but when youre working with multiple breeders having one system is essential. As companies become more global in nature and test hybrids at multiple sites around the world that becomes more of an issue. If the breeder is looking for wide adaptation data is collected from numerous locations. Thats really important Mulitze says. Laufer adds that even in the same company breeders in different locations may simply see things differently without a standardized program guiding them along the same path. The more spreadsheets you get the more difficult it is to keep things the same across the company Laufer says. One breeder may define fruit firmness in a different way than another or measure a trait with a different scale. Keep It Simple One of the key features of many of the breeder programs out there is a programs ease of use in the field. Breeders could make tens of thousands of observations per day and their productivity can be tied directly to how long it takes them to do repetitive tasks such as typing in data. Mulitze says his company looks for ways to reduce the number of keystrokes that have to be made in the field. One feature allows users to enter data and forces the cursor into the next data entry point automatically. If you make 10000 observations in a day you could have to press enter 10000 times and thats a waste of time Mulitze says. Barcodes and scanners not only save time but ensure that the data is input in the correct place. And once data is entered it needs to be acces- sible. Search functions with many of the software programs out there make pulling up data and com- paring it side by side much easier than wrestling with columns of data from multiple spreadsheets. The real challenge is to find the data make it comparable and access it Leidelmeijer says. Then you need to interchange it with other field inspec- tions and other observers. Climbing the Mountain There was a time when breeders observed their lines chose plants with desired features and made their crosses. They kept the best of those hybrids and started again. That system alone created a significant amount of data that would have to be sorted and analyzed. Its a lot of data crossing parents results of the offspring they create field observations they do Leidelmeijer says. Today the eye test and intuition certainly still play a role. But the unlocking of genetic codes has supplied breeders with more data than they once could have imagined. Not only are breeders selecting for particular genes they can drill down to SNPs single nucle- otide polymorphisms the difference in a single A G C or T in a plants DNA. Those differences are alleles and they allow breeders to significantly increase the pace and precision with which they create crosses. The amount of data has increased dramatically with the introduction of genetic markers and the industry becoming more global Laufer says. Breeders need to be able to take all that genetic data and relate it to the phenotypic data available. Dieter Mulitze Agronomix Software Inc. Ineke Leidelmeijer serves as a commercial consultant for Netherlands-based Agro Business Solutions B.V.