Systematic versus simple random sampling in plant protection

Systematic sampling methods are often used in disease and pest control studies because they are easy to implement and give uniform coverage of sample units over the population to be sampled.While there are few criticisms of these methods, computer simulations show that systematic sampling should be avoided when sampling any characteristic that is patchily dispersed throughout a population of sample units.Unless large sample sizes can be used when patchiness or contagion is suspected, simple random sampling is recommended.A QBasic computer program that can reduce the time taken to complete a simple random sample is briefly described.