Agriculture: Bell Peppers The pathogen Phytophthora capsici causes bell pepper plants to wilt and die. A research project was designed to study the effect of soil water content and the spread of the disease in fields of bell peppers (Source: Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics, Vol. 2, No. 2). It is thought that too much water helps spread the disease. The fields were divided into rows and quadrants. The soil water content (percent of water by volume of soil) was determined for each plot. An important first step in such a research project is to give a statistical description of the data.

Soil Water Content for Bell Pepper Study 15 14 14 14 13 12 11 11 11 11 10 11 13 16 10 9 15 12 9 10 7 14 13 14 8 9 8 11 13 13 15 12 9 10 9 9 16 16 12 10 11 11 12 15 6 10 10 10 11 9

(a) Make a box-and-whisker plot of the data. Find the interquartile range.

(b) Grouped Data Make a frequency table using four classes. Then estimate the mean and sample standard deviation using the frequency table.

Compute a 75% Chebyshev interval centered about the mean.

(c) If you have a statistical calculator or computer, use it to find the actual sample mean and sample standard deviation.

(d) Based on this data, would you be surprised to find a plot with soil water content of 2? How about a soil water content of 20?

AppendixLO1