Estimation of factors related to the fertilization of banana plants selected in a fractional factorial scheme 1

DSDs are often applied in identifying the most relevant factors in the early stages of an experimentation process, which typically involves a large number of factors (Ribeiro et al., 2019). [...]when experimentation is costly, time-consuming, or challenging, smaller designs end up being preferred (Yang et al., 2014). In agronomic experimental situations where multiple factors need to be considered and there are significant financial constraints for research, it is also necessary to exclude factors that will not have a relevant effect in the design (Yang et al., 2014), aiming to achieve greater efficiency in the experimental evaluation time. The above confirmatory field experiment was based on the main hypothesis of this study, i.e., the most important factors screened in a previous assay can be maintained at low (half), central (commercial dose) and high (double) levels without crop performance losses. [...]the objective of this experiment was to (i) estimate the effects of the main products (factors) by combining a DSD and a complete 33 factorial scheme for four factors screened as fertilization supplements for Prata Gorutuba banana plants in the 1st planting cycle and (ii) determine whether combinations of these four factors can be selected for a future test in the same region, during the same cycle, with the same cultivar and with values maintained at the central level. MATERIALS AND METHODS The experiment was conducted in a commercial banana farm with an 80 ha irrigated crop area located in the municipality of Paraopeba, central region of the state of Minas Gerais (19°16'01.1" S, 44°26'02.6" W, 761 m altitude).