Factorial Arrangement

• Usually interested in using more than one factor at a

time:
• Could consider one factor at a time
– Hold all other factors constant
– This is ok if the factors act independently
• But often factors are not independent of one
another (interaction exist)
Examples:
– Plant growth habit and plant density
– Crop maturity group and response to fertilizer or planting
date
– Breed of animal and levels of a nutritional supplement
– Microbial respiration and incubation temperature
 Interactions
Consider 3 varieties at four rates of nitrogen
V1 V1
V1
V2 V2 V2
Yield V3 V3
V3

20 40 60 80 20 40 60 80 20 40 60 80
No interaction Noncrossover Crossover
Interactions Interactions
Relative yield
of varieties is Magnitude of Ranks of varieties
the same at all differences among depend on fertilizer
fertilizer levels varieties depends level
• Tests for main on fertilizer level
effects are meaningful  Tests for main effects may be misleading
because differences are  In this case the test may show no
constant across all levels differences between varieties, when in fact their
of factor B response to factor B is very different
 Interactions – numerical example
Effect of two levels of phosphorous and potassium on crop yield

No interaction Positive interaction Negative interaction

P0 P1 Mean P0 P1 Mean P0 P1 Mean
K0 10 18 14 K0 10 18 14 K0 10 18 14
K1 14 22 18 K1 12 26 19 K1 16 14 15
Mean 12 20 Mean 11 22 Mean 13 16

(22-14)-(18-10) = 0 (26-12)-(18-10) = +6 (14-16)-(18-10) = -10

 Main effects are determined from the marginal means

 Simple effects refer to differences among treatment means at a
single level of another factor
 Advantages and Disadvantages
• Advantages - IF the factors are independent
– Results can be described in terms of the main effects
– Hidden replication - the other factors become replications
of the main effects
– If interaction exist, we can get solid conclusion of all
factors at once, and thus reduce the time duration for
more experimentation

• Disadvantages
– As the number of factors increase, the experiment
becomes very large
– Can be difficult to interpret when there are interactions
 Uses for Factorial Experiments
• When you are charting new ground and you want
to discover which factors are important and which
are not
• When you want to study the relationship among a
number of factors
• When you want to be able to make
recommendations over a wide range of conditions
• This has to do with the selection of treatments
• Can be used in any design - CRD, RBD, Latin Square
- etc.
• A “factorial” refers to the treatment combinations
Factorial Example- A numerical study
To study the effect of S2P1 S1P2 S1P1
row spacing and 60 45 55
phosphate S2P1 S1P2 S2P2
on the yield of bean 59 56 45
Given in g/plant S3P1 S3P1 S1P1
51 55 65
– 3 spacings: (S) S3P1 S1P1 S2P1
20, 30, 40 cm 59 58 54
S1P2 S3P2 S3P2
– 2 phosphate levels (P) 43 57 66
0 and 90 kg/ha S2P2 S2P2 S3P2
62 50 50
 Calculation and computation
Rep 1 Rep 2 Rep 3 SUM
Su
S1P1 65 58 55 178 S1 S2 S3 m
P1 178 173 165 516
S1P2 56 45 43 144 P2 144 157 173 474
Sum 322 330 338 990
S2P1 60 59 54 173
Now we have to calculate,
S2P2 62 50 45 157 Correction factor,

S3P1 59 55 51 165 • Total sum of square

• Factor A sum of square
S3P2 66 57 50 173 • Factor B sum of square
• A x B interaction sum of square
Total 368 324 298 990 • Error sum of square
All other mean square and F-ration