Randomized branch sampling to estimatefruit production in Pecan trees cv. ‘Barton’

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Sampling techniques to quantify the production of fruits are still very scarce and create a gap in crop development research. This study was conducted in a rural property in the county of Cachoeira do Sul - RS to estimate the efficiency of randomized branch sampling (RBS) in quantifying the production of pecan fruit at three different ages (5,7 and 10 years). Two selection techniques were tested: the probability proportional to the diameter (PPD) and the uniform probability (UP) techniques, which were performed on nine trees, three from each age and randomly chosen. The RBS underestimated fruit production for all ages, and its main drawback was the high sampling error (125.17% - PPD and 111.04% - UP). The UP was regarded as more efficient than the PPD, though both techniques estimated similar production and similar experimental errors. In conclusion, we reported that branch sampling was inaccurate for this case study, requiring new studies to produce estimates with smaller sampling error.