README.md

In morrowplots: Historical Agricultural Data from the University of Illinois

morrowplots

Use morrowplots to load, explore, and analyze nearly 150 years of agricultural data from the historic Morrow Plots at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Data collection and formats have evolved over time, and this dataset was created to aggregate decades of tabular data (previously in various physical and digital forms) into a format compatible with the R programming language. Vignettes provide mini lessons on the history of the Morrow Plots and example code for exploration of the data.

Installation

You can install the stable version from CRAN.

install.packages("morrowplots")

You can install the development version Github:

# install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("SandiCal/morrowplots")

Structure

Data is structured as a dataframe in the Tidy Data format so that each variable has its own column, each observation has its own row, and each value has its own cell.

## preview first 12 rows of data
library(morrowplots)
library(knitr)
kable(morrowplots[1:12, ])

| phase | year | plot | plot_num | plot_dir | rotation | corn | crop | variety | all_corn | yield_bush | yield_ton | treated | treatment | manure | lime | nit | p205 | k20 | stover | population | plant_date | plant_day | soil_sample | damage | notes | |---:|---:|:---|---:|:---|---:|:---|:---|:---|:---|---:|---:|:---|:---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|:---|---:|:---|:---|:---| | 1 | 1888 | 3NA | 3 | NW | 1 | TRUE | CC | Burr’s White | FALSE | 54.3 | NA | FALSE | none | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 1888-05-04 | 125 | FALSE | NA | NA | | 1 | 1888 | 3NB | 3 | NW | 1 | TRUE | CC | Burr’s White | FALSE | 54.3 | NA | FALSE | none | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 1888-05-04 | 125 | FALSE | NA | NA | | 1 | 1888 | 3NC | 3 | NE | 1 | TRUE | CC | Burr’s White | FALSE | 54.3 | NA | FALSE | none | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 1888-05-04 | 125 | FALSE | NA | NA | | 1 | 1888 | 3ND | 3 | NE | 1 | TRUE | CC | Burr’s White | FALSE | 54.3 | NA | FALSE | none | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 1888-05-04 | 125 | FALSE | NA | NA | | 1 | 1888 | 3SA | 3 | SW | 1 | TRUE | CC | Burr’s White | FALSE | 54.3 | NA | FALSE | none | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 1888-05-04 | 125 | FALSE | NA | NA | | 1 | 1888 | 3SB | 3 | SW | 1 | TRUE | CC | Burr’s White | FALSE | 54.3 | NA | FALSE | none | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 1888-05-04 | 125 | FALSE | NA | NA | | 1 | 1888 | 3SC | 3 | SE | 1 | TRUE | CC | Burr’s White | FALSE | 54.3 | NA | FALSE | none | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 1888-05-04 | 125 | FALSE | NA | NA | | 1 | 1888 | 3SD | 3 | SE | 1 | TRUE | CC | Burr’s White | FALSE | 54.3 | NA | FALSE | none | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 1888-05-04 | 125 | FALSE | NA | NA | | 1 | 1888 | 4NA | 4 | NW | 2 | TRUE | C | Burr’s White | FALSE | 49.5 | NA | FALSE | none | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 1888-05-04 | 125 | FALSE | NA | NA | | 1 | 1888 | 4NB | 4 | NW | 2 | TRUE | C | Burr’s White | FALSE | 49.5 | NA | FALSE | none | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 1888-05-04 | 125 | FALSE | NA | NA | | 1 | 1888 | 4NC | 4 | NE | 2 | TRUE | C | Burr’s White | FALSE | 49.5 | NA | FALSE | none | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 1888-05-04 | 125 | FALSE | NA | NA | | 1 | 1888 | 4ND | 4 | NE | 2 | TRUE | C | Burr’s White | FALSE | 49.5 | NA | FALSE | none | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 1888-05-04 | 125 | FALSE | NA | NA |

Variables

The codebook that describes all variables is available in the help documentation.

help(morrowplots)

Including:

phase

An integer between 1-5 that describes the important stages of the experiment when plot size, crop rotation or treatments changed.

year

Date in YYYY format for year crops were planted and harvested.

plot

Character string that indicates the plot number, North/South location, and A/B/C/D subplot (see Data Sources section above for an important note about plot names); values are 3NA; 3NB; 3NC; 3ND; 3SA; 3SB; 3SC; 3SD; 4NA; 4NB; 4NC; 4ND; 4SA; 4SB; 4SC; 4SD; 5NA; 5NB; 5NC; 5ND; 5SA; 5SB; 5SC; 5SD

plot_num

Integer of 3, 4, or 5 for the plot number without subplot indicators.

plot_dir

Character string that indicates the north/south and east/west direction; values are NE, NW, SE, or SW.

rotation

An integer of 1, 2, or 3 that describes the year in the crop rotation schedule.

corn

A true or false variable to make it easy to group corn in rotation and continuous corn.

crop

Character string that for the crop planted with separate values for corn in rotation and continuous corn; values are A (alfalfa), C (corn), CC (continuous corn), H (hay), O (oats), or S (soybean).

variety

Character string with free text of the crop variety name.

all_corn

A true or false variable indicating whether this was a year when corn was planted in all plots.

yield_bush

Integer value of yeilds for all crops except hay in bushels/acre.

yield_ton

Integer value of yeild of hay in tons/acre.

treated

A true or false variable indicating whether or not this plot was treated that year.

treatment

Character string that describes the treatment plan for this plot; values are none, MLrP, MLbP, 0LNsPK, MLrPNsPK, LNPK, LHNPK, or MLP.

manure

An integer for the specific amount of manure applied to this plot this year in lbs/plot.

lime

An integer for the specific amount of lime applied to this plot this year in tons/acre

nit

An integer for the specific amount of nitrogen applied to this plot this year in lbs/acre.

p205

An integer for the specific amount of phosphorus (on an oxide basis) applied to this plot this year in lbs/acre.

k20

An integer for the specific amount of potassium (on an oxide basis) applied to this plot this year in lbs/acre.

stover

An integer for the amount of stover or straw removed in tons/acre.

population

An integer for the number of plants based on counts from hand harvesting in plants/acre.

plant_date

Date the crop was planted in MM/DD/YYYY format.

plant_day

An integer that indicates the nth day in the year that the crop was planted.

soil_sample

A true or false variable that indicates whether there is at least one soil sample for this plot and year.

damage

Character string with free text describing known sources of significant damage to crops that year.

notes

Character string with free text for any notes that do not fit in other fields.

Source

Dataset published in the Illinois Data Bank at doi.org/10.13012/B2IDB-7865141_V2

morrowplots documentation built on April 3, 2025, 10:51 p.m.