When one has been in the business of designing, installing, executing, and reporting agricultural and environmental field studies for over two decades, like I have, you’ll have learned a thing or two about how to head off pitfalls and shortcomings. The collective experience and knowledge of my team have saved my clients a lot of time and money over the years, surpassing the competition. This month, I want to share some of the biggest pitfalls my colleagues and I see facing the field study industry today, in hopes that you can avoid the frustrations they cause with your next study.

Conducting field studies—those glorious days outside in every imaginable weather pattern—is a delicate balance between purpose-driven scientific design and execution costs. At Waterborne, our goal is a scientifically credible and supportive study that meets client and regulatory requirements, all the while being reasonable in cost. We work under the Fair³ motto: fair to the client, fair to the company, and fair to the employee. In the past, our approach has been mostly straightforward, but 2025 has brought new, unprecedented variables into our study environment. We’re up to the challenge!

One may ask, what do we see as the biggest impacts to solid, scientifically accurate, and actionable field study results today? Well, some are obvious, while others have us scratching our heads. All should be warning signs to management that a study's design may have complicated or incomplete data that could affect future study processes and introduce additional risk. Some of these may include: 

• Frequent staffing changes to support the study. We get it, life happens and the project must go on. We do our best to anticipate a small number of client, vendor, subcontractor or staffing changes from the onset. Today, that’s not necessarily what we’re seeing. More often we’re seeing more changes over the duration of the study requiring transitions and sometimes piecemeal from multiple vendors and subcontractors. It’s disjointing to the study and always results in more time and cost and can lead to degraded or missing data if seamless quality control isn’t taken at all levels of the project.
• Infrequent updates from study participants. This one reminds me of the old Laurel and Hardy “Who’s on First?” gag. Having more people participate in a study is not always a positive, especially if the study participants shift and change throughout the study’s timeline. Additionally, with multiple project leads, it can be hard to track down answers that we need to complete the study on time. This is particularly true for multi-year studies (Waterborne has a study that’s now in its third decade—I’ve been with it since the beginning!). I found it’s best to have someone qualified as a consistent force throughout the study.
• A price that seems too good to be true. As they say, “you get what you pay for.”. Like choosing your airline seat, there are many options to consider when reviewing field study designs and equipment costs. Today, we are seeing more baseline costing approaches with fewer detailed assumptions and catch all phrasing for studies that deviate from the baseline. While lower up-front pricing may be more enticing, studies can result in higher final costs due to frequent study changes and run the risk of missing key data elements. We have been called in to “fix” or supplement studies, which our client ends up paying more than if they’d hired us from the beginning. Peace of mind from the start is worth it.
• Lack of management oversight during the critical phase of execution. Field studies are often based on timing, and when we need decision making, time is of the essence; mother nature waits for no one! We’ve noticed more people may be taking a back seat to being on site. This may be a cost cutting measure. However, the reality appears to be people with too much on their plates who are pulled in many directions. Waterborne recognizes the value of putting eyes on the design and working closely with all parties involved.  
• Data handshaking/transfer on a routine basis may result in missing data. As with anything, frequently moving information and files can lead to technical issues and lost data, which can cause havoc with the study. Direct transfer via the field is one of Waterborne’s specialties to potentially limit the amount of downtime and being able to see “the problem” faster. 
• Critical field study inputs, such as water being over- or under-applied over the course of the study. Everyone knows that over or underwatering plants can cause problems. Imagine if those same plants were subjects in a field study? If something is critical to the study, it needs to be watched carefully or it may have detrimental effects on the study.
• Incomplete documentation for study reporting or objective support. Not completing documentation should be another obvious no-no, but I still see it on a regular basis. It’s important to cross over “t” and dot every “i” with study documentation. Doing otherwise can impact your study’s reporting and accuracy.
• Incomplete or inaccurate equipment for study testing. This is a big one. While my team and I have had to “MacGuyver" equipment to customize it for the study’s unique requirements, we never shortchange a study or use a piece of equipment that is completely wrong for the environment, situation, or subject matter. If what we have in our inventory won’t work, we’ll purchase, rent, or borrow what we need, even if it cuts our project’s profits. I wish I could say this is a universal approach to field studies within the industry.

So, what are the best practices for setting up a successful study? We begin by evaluating the following scenarios, which fall into a few categories: things we know, things that we don’t know, and then there are things that we know we don’t know yet. The first two categories are items that can be addressed during study initiation (items like expected concentrations and flow, anticipated field conditions, etc.), while the last category includes items that occur during study execution (equipment troubleshooting, severe weather, etc.).

This twisted ball of knowns and unknowns leads us to being transparent with the client, building confidence in what we know, and making reasonable assumptions to account for things such as weather hiccups, shipping mishaps, and continuous solid documentation support so work can be completed in a transparent, successful way on time and schedule, accepting of the client’s needs.

While the cost of peace of mind up front may be a fraction more, it provides enormous savings on the backend, so a client is not stuck with unreasonable change order pricing and possibly leaving a study’s credibility on the line.