Afarmer wants to compare the tastimess and juiciness of tomatoes grown with three amounts of a new fertilizer: none, half the recommended amount, and the full recommended amount. the farmer allocates 6 tomato plants to receive each amount of fertilizer, assigning them at random. to obtain enough plants for the experiment the farmer has to purchase plants from two different garden centers. the farmer then randomly assigns the plants from each garden center to all three fertilizer treatments. is the experiment blocked? is that a good idea?

is the experiment blocked?

a.) the experiment is not blocked because tomato plants from each garden center are being assigned to all three fertilizer levels.

b.) the experiment is blocked because the tomato plants are assigned the level of fertilizer randomly.

c.) the experiment is not blocked because the farmer knows what level of fertilizer each tomato plant is getting.

d.) the experiment is blocked because the tomato plants from each garden center are grouped together into blocks and then each block is assigned each of the fertilizer levels.

is that a good idea?

a.) it is not a good idea to randomly assign the plants from each garden center to all three fertilizer treatments because the farmer knows that there are plants from each garden center getting each level of fertilizer and that might introduce bias.

b.) it is a good idea to randomly assign the plants from each garden center to all three fertilizer treatments so the experiment is blocked.

c.) it is not a good idea to randomly assign the plants from each garden center to all three fertilizer treatments because now there is no control group.

d.) the tomato plants from each garden center are already different so they should be assigned to different treatment levels.