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Tricot resources

Curated resources on the tricot approach and ClimMob: key publications, training videos, costing templates, and crop-specific supporting materials.

📄 Publications🎬 Training Videos💰 Costing Templates 📄 SOPs🌾 Supporting Material 📄 Spousal Information Letter 🧑 Farmer Feedback Package

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Publications

Tricot Guide

The Tricot Guide

Jacob van Etten, Rhys Manners, Jonathan Steinke, Elsa Matthus, Kauê de Sousa. 2020.
The tricot approach. Guide for large-scale participatory experiments.
Rome (Italy): Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT.
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/109942

This is a short, full-colour guide intended for practitioners who are not yet familiar with tricot.
It explains the rationale of tricot and gives an overview of the experimental cycle.

Main Publications

Main publications

All publications about the tricot approach are free and open access.

• Jonathan Steinke, Jacob van Etten and Pablo Mejía-Zelan. 2017.
  The accuracy of farmer-generated data in an agricultural citizen science methodology.
  Agronomy for Sustainable Development 37: 32. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-017-0441-y

  The above paper shows that farmers provide accurate data in tricot trials. Their rankings converge with expert rankings for four traits. The variation between farmers still allows for accurate overall ranking of the varieties.

• Eskender Beza, Jonathan Steinke, Jacob van Etten et al. 2017.
  What are the prospects for large-N citizen science in agriculture? Evidence from three continents on motivation and mobile telephone use of resource-poor farmers participating in “tricot” crop research trials.
  PLoS ONE 12(5): e0175700. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175700

  This paper investigates the motivation of farmers who participate in tricot trials across three contrasting contexts: Honduras, Ethiopia and India. Farmers are motivated by a wide range of reasons, including intrinsic and extrinsic factors. They do not see it as a pastime, but also do not expect monetary compensation. They expect technical information and access to seeds as reward of their participation.

• Jacob van Etten, et al. 2019.
  First experiences with a novel farmer citizen science approach: Crowdsourcing participatory variety selection through on-farm triadic comparisons of technologies (tricot).
  Experimental Agriculture, 55(S1). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0014479716000739

  This paper provides an explanation of the tricot approach, how it compares to previous approaches, and some first applications. Note that it uses the Bradley-Terry model, which was replaced by the Plackett-Luce model in later publications.

• Jacob van Etten, Kauê de Sousa, […] Jonathan Steinke. 2019.
  Crop variety management for climate adaptation supported by citizen science.
  PNAS 116(10): 4194-4199. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1813720116

  This paper describes the application of large tricot trials in Nicaragua, Ethiopia and India. It demonstrates the potential of tricot to generate insights into variety adaptation, recommend adapted varieties, and aid smallholder farmers in responding to climate change. It is the first large-scale application of climate analysis on tricot data.

• Heather Turner, Jacob van Etten, David Firth, Ioannis Kosmidis. 2020.
  Modelling rankings in R: the PlackettLuce package.
  Comput Stat 35, 1027–1057. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00180-020-00959-3

  This article explains the Plackett-Luce model and its implementation in R, as used by the ClimMob platform.

• Kauê de Sousa, Jacob van Etten, […] Matteo Dell’Acqua. 2021.
  Data-driven decentralized breeding increases prediction accuracy in a challenging crop production environment.
  Communications Biology 4, 944. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-021-02463-w

  This paper shows that tricot can be effectively combined with genomic selection for highly accurate selection in challenging production environments. Tested with durum wheat in Ethiopia, 3D-breeding doubled prediction accuracy compared to conventional methods, identifying genotypes with superior local adaptation across seasons to improve breeding decisions.

• David Brown, Sytze de Bruin, Kauê de Sousa, […] Jacob van Etten. 2022.
  Rank-based data synthesis of common bean on-farm trials across four Central American countries.
  Crop Science. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.20817

  This article provides an approach to combine data from different tricot trials to obtain insights for regional analysis using on-farm data.

• Oladeji Emmanuel Alamu, Béla Teeken, et al. 2023. Establishing the linkage between eba’s instrumental and sensory descriptive profiles and their correlation with consumer preferences: implications for cassava breeding.
  Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.12518

  This article links tricot data to laboratory instrumental data to understand consumers’ preferences with implications for breeding programs.

• Kauê de Sousa, David Brown, Jonathan Steinke, Jacob van Etten. 2023. gosset: An R package for analysis and synthesis of ranking data in agricultural experimentation. SoftwareX. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2023.101402

  This paper introduces the gosset package used on ClimMob. It demonstrates the package functionality using the case study of a decentralized on-farm trial of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) varieties in Nicaragua.

• Pieter Rutsaert, Jason Donovan, Harriet Mawia, Kauê de Sousa, Jacob van Etten. 2023. Future market segments for hybrid maize in East Africa. Market Intelligence Brief Series 2. Montpellier: CGIAR. https://hdl.handle.net/10883/22467

  This paper introduces a novel approach to assess market demands in seed systems using decentralized testing under the tricot approach.

• Carlos Quirós, Kauê de Sousa, […] Jacob van Etten. 2023. ClimMob: Software to Support Experimental Citizen Science in Agriculture. SSRN. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4463406

  This paper introduces the ClimMob software.

• Jacob van Etten, Kauê de Sousa, […] Hale Ann Tufan. 2023. Data-driven approaches can harness crop diversity to address heterogeneous needs for breeding products.
  PNAS 120 (14). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2205771120

  This paper brings a perspective on opportunities and challenges of data-driven approaches for crop diversity management (genebanks and breeding) in the context of agricultural research for sustainable development in the Global South.

• Rachel C. Voss, Jill E. Cairns, Michael Olsen,Francisca Ndinda Muteti, […] Vincent Woyengo 4. 2023. Innovative approaches to integrating gender into conventional maize breeding : lessons from the Seed Production Technology for Africa project. Frontiers in Sociology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2023.1254595

  This case study showed how the maize-focused SPTA project integrated gender into breeding through breeder–social scientist collaboration, culminating in decentralized on-farm variety trials using tricot.

• Kauê de Sousa, Jacob van Etten, Rhys Manners, Erna Abidin, […] Mainassara Zaman-Allah. 2024.
  The tricot approach: an agile framework for decentralized on-farm testing supported by citizen science. A retrospective. Agronomy for Sustainable Development. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-023-00937-1

  This paper reviews the development, validation, and large-scale evolution of the decentralized, citizen-science-based tricot method—highlighting its low cost, data validity and reliability at scale, and its ability to capture socio-economic and climatic heterogeneity to enhance crop variety decision-making in smallholder agriculture.

• Ann Ritah Nanyonjo, Stephen Angudubo, Paula Iragaba, […] Robert Sezi Kawuki. 2024. On-farm evaluation of cassava clones using the triadic comparison of technology options approach.
  Crop Science, 64, 2679–2697. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.21293

  This paper found that rainfall patterns shaped cassava clone performance more than sociocultural factors, identifying several elite clones as strong candidates for release.

• Martina Occelli, Jorge Sellare, Kauê de Sousa, […] Jacob van Etten. 2024. Group-based and citizen science on-farm variety selection approaches for bean growers in Central America.
  Agricultural Economics. https://doi.org/10.1111/agec.12819

  This paper found that both tricot-PVS and traditional group-PVS participation equally promoted on-farm varietal diversification among Central American bean growers, but group-PVS more effectively enhanced household food security—likely due to its positive impact on agronomic management.

• Rachel Voss, Kauê de Sousa, Sognigbé N'Danikou, […] Maarten van Zonneveld. 2025. Citizen science informs demand-driven breeding of opportunity crops. Plants, People, Planet, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.70035

  This paper used tricot trials with 2,063 farmers in West and East Africa, showing that farmer preferences for leafy amaranth varied by traits and demographics, guiding demand-driven breeding.

• K. Sharma, E. Atieno, J. Mugo, K. de Sousa, J. van Etten, S. Nyawade. 2025. Understanding farmer preferences through citizen science: Insights on potato varieties in Nigeria. Journal of Agriculture and Food Research 23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jafr.2025.102135

  This paper used tricot trials in Nigeria to reveal farmers preferred three CIP potato genotypes for yield, resistance, and storability, underscoring the value of participatory, data-driven breeding.

• Mabel Nabateregga, Hugo Dorado-Betancourt, Svein Solberg, […] Kauê de Sousa. 2025. Accuracy of farmer-generated yield estimations of common bean in decentralised on-farm trials in sub–Saharan Africa.
  European Journal of Agronomy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eja.2025.127730

  This paper showed that farmer-generated yield estimates in Tanzanian tricot bean trials closely matched technician and researcher measurements, proving them accurate, scalable, and cost-effective for breeding decisions.

• Geon Kang, Kauê de Sousa, Rhys Manners, Jacob van Etten, […] Stefanie Griebel. 2025.
  Integrating environmental, socio-economic, and biological data in a farmer-led potato trial for enhanced varietal assessment in Rwanda. Experimental Agriculture. 61(18), pp 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0014479725100100

  This paper found through tricot trials in Rwanda that farmers favored older potato varieties, with yield and marketability—shaped by temperature and income—driving adoption more than on-station performance.

• Jason Donovan, Pieter Rutsaert, Harriet Mawia, Kauê de Sousa, Jacob van Etten. 2025.
  Farmers’ preferences for the next generation of maize hybrids: application of product concept testing in Kenya and Uganda. Experimental Agriculture. https://doi.org/10.1017/S001447972500002X

  This paper applied video-based product concept testing with 2,400 farmers in Kenya and Uganda, finding that “Resilience,” “Drought escape,” and “Intercropping” seed concepts were most preferred, highlighting opportunities for future maize breeding beyond yield-focused traits.

• Jill E. Cairns, Mainassara Zaman-Allah, Federic Baudron, Rachel C. Voss, […] Boddupalli M. Prasanna. 2025. Know your men and women farmers: Ensuring host farmers in participatory trials represent heterogeneity within the target environment. Plants, People, Planet. https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.70070

  This paper evaluated whether women and men host farmers recruited for participatory breeding on-farm trials in Zimbabwe were representative of the wider smallholder population, and pilots a comprehensive farm-typology method to better capture heterogeneity when selecting future trial hosts.

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Training videos

All videos about ClimMob and tricot are on the ClimMob YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmqo4KCZwX8R-H4SNkXfuSA/playlists

📌 Introduction to tricot

General introduction to tricot as an on-farm testing approach, explaining the rationale and underlying concepts.

Watch playlist →

🖥️ ClimMob software

Step-by-step videos on how to set up an experiment on ClimMob.

Watch playlist →

📊 Data analysis with R

Advanced analyses using R packages complementary to ClimMob’s trial-level analysis.

Watch playlist →

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Costing Templates

Standardized costing templates have been developed to estimate and compare the costs of tricot trials across crops, geographies, and scales.

📄 Guidelines for the Costing Templates🌾 Costing Template for Grain Crops 🍌 Costing Template for Roots Tubers and Banana (RTB)

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Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

Introduction to SOPs🥬 Amaranth🥜 Bambara groundnut🫘 Cowpea🌾 Finger millet🥬 Jute mallow🥗 Leafy vegetables🌽 Maize🌾 Pearl millet🎃 Pumpkin🌿 Sesame🍠 Sweet potato

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Supporting Material

The following downloadable images illustrate traits, symptoms, and conditions commonly used in tricot trials.

Beans

Bean cooking timeBean drought toleranceBean germinationBean grain yieldBean marketability (bills)Bean marketability (coins)Bean maturityBean pest resistanceBean plant survivalBean seed sizeBean tasteBean vigor

Cassava

Cassava establishmentCassava CMDCassava CBSDCassava amount of stemsCassava maturityCassava root yieldCassava root shapeCassava root sizeCassava flesh colourCassava CBSD root necrosisCassava tasteCassava flour yieldCassava Ugali colourCassava Ugali tasteCassava overall acceptance

Cocoa

Cocoa phytophthoraCocoa cherelleCocoa diameterCocoa heightCocoa jorquetteCocoa leafCocoa mistletoesCocoa moniliaCocoa numberCocoa sizeCocoa yield

Cowpea

Cowpea droughtCowpea germinationCowpea grain yieldCowpea maturityCowpea pest resistanceCowpea plant survivalCowpea replantingCowpea seed colorCowpea seed sizeCowpea strigaCowpea vigor

Millet

Millet downy mildew resistanceMillet drought resistanceMillet grain colorMillet grain sizeMillet grain yieldMillet malting qualityMillet maturityMillet overallMillet panicle lengthMillet stover yieldMillet diseaseMillet marketabilityMillet overall vs localMillet tasteMillet threshability

Potato

Potato diseasePotato dormancyPotato earlyPotato market harvestPotato market storagePotato maturityPotato pestPotato qualityPotato shapePotato sizePotato tastePotato yield

Sorghum

Sorghum antracnosis resistanceSorghum disease toleranceSorghum drought toleranceSorghum grain colorSorghum grain sizeSorghum grain yieldSorghum malting qualitySorghum marketabilitySorghum maturitySorghum panicle lengthSorghum stover yieldSorghum striga

Soybean

Soybean diseaseSoybean droughtSoybean earlySoybean heightSoybean lodgingSoybean pods per plantSoybean shatterSoybean sizeSoybean yield

Tricot guidance for farmers

This sheet can be distributed to participating farmers to explain the tricot methodology.

📄 Tricot guidance sheet for farmers (English)

Tricot guidance images

PreparationMeetingPlantingManagementObservationCommunicationResults

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Spousal Information Letter

The Spousal Information Letter is used to inform and introduce spouses of participating farmers to the tricot project, fostering a mutual understanding of its objectives and highlighting how it encourages men’s support of women’s participation. This helps effectively reach and access women participants in dual-adult households, avoid unintended household-level consequences and enhance data collection. Prepared by Emily Amondo.

📄 Spousal Information Guidelines for farmers (English)📄 Spousal Information Letter (English)

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Farmer Feedback Package

Introduction

The Farmer Feedback Package contains documents designed to support the feedback of tricot trial results back to the participants. It includes the minimum elements needed to deliver useful and clear information about farmer participation and trial results.

Why farmer feedback matters

Providing feedback to farmers is essential because they are active partners in the tricot process. As citizen scientists, they deserve to know the results of the trials in which they participated.

What the Farmer Feedback Package contains the following documents:

• Feedback workshop manual: A document that explains how to carry out a feedback workshop, including the activities to be conducted and the resources needed.

Feedback sheet documents:

• Feedback sheet manual: A document that explains how to create the feedback sheet.

• Farmer feedback sheet data frame: An Excel file structured with the required information to populate the feedback sheet.

• Farmer feedback sheet template: A Powerpoint template to create the farmer feedback sheet.

• Icons for the feedback sheet: These icons are used to created the feedback sheet.

Farmer certificate documents:

• Certificate manual: A document that explains how to create a certificate of participation.

• Certificate data frame: An Excel file structured with the required information to populate the certificate.

• Certificate template: A PowerPoint file containing the basic certificate design, linked to an Excel dataset.