OPTIMAL NEIGHBOR BALANCED DESIGNS TO IMPROVE AGRICULTUAL ECONOMY

Abstract

Agricultural growth plays a vital role in improving Pakistan’s economy. Agriculture sector of Pakistan is considered as a major productive sector of Pakistan’s economy. Around 61% population is living in more than 50,000 villages in Pakistan. Economic development, progress and prosperity cannot be achieved without improving agricultural sector. It provides employment opportunities and produces exportable items for foreign exchange. So, agricultural sector is helpful to make rapid economic development. Neighbor designs increase the production and improve efficiency in agriculture, horticulture and forestry by minimizing the experimental error. In agriculture, guiding principle of neighbor design is to enhance production through effectiveness of cost and time by minimizing neighboring treatment/plot effect which contributes significantly to GDP growth and leads to poverty reduction. Neighbor effects in agriculture can be observed in experiments where tall plants effect the growth and production of neighboring smaller plants. Neighbor designs reduce this neighbor effect. In this paper optimal neighbor balanced designs are developed which increase the agricultural economy. A series of optimal one-dimensional neighbor designs have been developed for odd prime number of treatments.