Study Description: Nutrient Formulations and Crop Yield

An agricultural researcher wanted to investigate whether a newly developed organic liquid nutrient formulation ($N_{new}$) increases the dry mass yield of cherry tomato plants compared to the current industry-standard formulation ($N_{std}$). The researcher used a matched-pairs design with 25 pairs of cloned plants (50 plants in total).

• Group A (Standard): One plant from each cloned pair was treated with the standard formulation, and its total dry mass of harvested fruit (in grams) was recorded after 12 weeks.
• Group B (New): The other plant from each cloned pair was treated with the new organic formulation under identical environmental conditions, and its total dry mass of harvested fruit (in grams) was recorded after 12 weeks.

A matched-pairs $t$-test was conducted to determine whether the difference in dry mass yield was significant. The researcher tested at a 0.01 level of significance.

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