PLABSTAT may be read as PLAnt Breeding STATistical program or alternatively as PLAnned Block experiments and their STATistical analysis.

In the age of wide-spread statistical computer packages the question arises if special programs for statistical analyses of agronomy and plant breeding experiments should be written.

The present program is concise and includes only the most important routines for the analysis of plant experiments. It is easy to handle, generates compact output, checks on outliers, and estimates genetic variances and correlations, or heritabiliy routinely.

As a program is in continous progress and can also never comprise all statistical methods, PLABSTAT is designed such a way, that changes to more sophisticated software packages, e.g. GENSTAT are easy. PLABSTAT does not include a routine for the data input. Therefore an editor program, e.g. KEDIT, THE, EMACS, or one of the group SCITE, Crimson Editor, UltraEdit, ConTEXT, or WORD and EXCEL or a database program, must be used.