I believe that the AgMIP group (Cheryl Porter) has the translation tools, and ICASA should be the format in which we accept and provide experimental metadata (since it is widely used in the agricultural modeling community and USDA).

• ICASA is a metadata specification for agricultural studies and experimental design that includes:
• a clearly define schema that can be stored in a variety of formats (excel, json, sql) https://uofi.box.com/s/sscuf926ycape3dl5a88l9vv04vlk0g5
• a clearly defined way of storing the data in json http://research.agmip.org/display/dev/JSON+Data+Objects

Some sample ICASA data sets in both ICASA and excel, as well as documentation can be found in: https://uofi.box.com/terraref-icasa

David LeBauer