ABSTRACT
In agriculture pest management, the “process” might be the set of fields or orchards which could be sampled by a commercial scouting operation, or development over time of pest status in a field. For decision-making, sequential sampling is often the only method to be seriously considered because it allows sampling to cease as soon as it becomes obvious which decision should be made. Two sequential sampling protocols are commonly used in entomology: the sequential probability ratio test and a confidence interval method. Sequential sampling for one-time decision-making is described. Sequential sampling for decision making in the form the people know it today originated in the Statistical Research Group, based at Columbia University, New York, during the period 1942-1945. The estimate of the economic threshold is also more critical for sequential sampling, because it helps define the entire system: if experience shows that it must be changed, the whole sampling protocol, boundaries and all, needs to be changed.
