Excerpt from Effects of Soil and Foliar Applications of Nitrogen Fertilizers on a 20-Year-Old Douglas-Fir Stand
We established nine -acre, circular plots in this stand before the 1973 growing season. We located three plots in an area designated for foliar fertilization by helicopter We placed the remaining six in an abutting 14-acre, non  spray area and randomly selected three of these plots for hand fertilization with urea prill; the other three were control plots (fig. Thus, our spray treated plots were adjacent, but not randomly intermingled with the other plots.