LATIN SQUARE DESIGN

Latin Square Designs are probably not used as much as they should be - they are
very efficient designs. Latin square designs allow for two blocking factors. In
other words, these designs are used to simultaneously control (or eliminate) two
sources of nuisance variability.
The major feature of the Latin square (LS) design is its capacity to simultaneously
handle two known sources of variation among experimental units. It treats the
sources as two independent blocking criteria, instead of only one as in the RCB
design. The two-directional blocking in a LS design, commonly referred to as row-
blocking and column-blocking, is accomplished by ensuring that every treatment
occurs only once in each row-block and once in each column-block. This
procedure makes it possible to estimate variation among row-blocks as well as
among column-blocks and to remove them from experimental error
 FACTS ABOUT THE LS DESIGN

• With the Latin Square design you are able to control variation in two directions.
• Treatments are arranged in rows and columns
• Each row contains every treatment.
• Each column contains every treatment.
• The most common sizes of LS are 5x5 to 8x8
 ADVANTAGES OF THE LS DESIGN

• They handle the case when we have several nuisance factors and we either
cannot combine them into a single factor or we wish to keep them separate.
• They allow experiments with a relatively small number of runs.
 DISADVANTAGES OF THE LS DESIGN

1. The number of treatments must equal the number of replicates.

2. The experimental error is likely to increase with the size of the square.
3. Small squares have very few degrees of freedom for experimental error.
4. You can’t evaluate interactions between:
a. Rows and columns
b. Rows and treatments
c. Columns and treatments.
 SOME EXAMPLES OF CASES WHERE THE LS
DESIGN CAN BE APPROPRIATELY USED ARE:

• Field trials in which the experimental area has two fertility gradients running
perpendicular to each other, or has a unidirectional fertility gradient but also has
residual effects from previous trials
• Insecticide field trials where the insect migration has a predictable direction that
is perpendicular to the dominant fertility gradient of the experimental field.
• Greenhouse trials in which the experimental pots are arranged in straight line
perpendicular to the glass or screen walls, such that the difference among rows
of pots and the distance from the glass wall (or screen wall) are expected to be
the two major sources of variability among the experimental pots.
• Laboratory trials with replication over time, such that the difference among
experimental units conducted at the same time and among those conducted over
time constitute the two known sources of variability.
The presence of row-blocking and column-blocking in a LS design, while useful in
taking care of two independent sources of variation, also becomes a major
restriction in the use of the design. This is so because the requirement that all
treatments appear in each row-block and in each column-block can be satisfied
only if the number of replications is equal to the number of treatments. As a result,
when the number of treatments is large the design becomes impractical because of
the large number of replications required. On the other hand, when the number of
treatments is small the degree of freedom associated with the experimental error
becomes too small for the error to be reliably estimated.
The LS design is applicable only for experiments in which the number of
treatments is not less than four and not more than eight. Because of such
limitation, the LS design has not been widely used in agricultural experiments
despite its great potential for controlling experimental error.