ABSTRACT
Randomized branch sampling (RBS) was developed originally by Jessen (1955) to estimate fruit counts on individual orchard trees. This ingenious method of multistage probability sampling can be used to obtain estimates of many different attributes of orchard, forest, and shade trees, and other branched plants. In principle, RBS could be applied to other branched structures such as corals and river systems, though we have not seen any ‘non-botanical’ applications. Most practitioners implement RBS with replacement at all stages of sampling, though Cancino & Saborowski (2005) have investigated sampling without replacement at the first stage.
