I spent the day out in the field today doing plant counts. We’ve found that a 1/4 meter square is a nice area for counting plants. Ron had some wire frame squares made up to make it easy to see how many plants the are in a given area. We have frames that measure one foot square and frames that measure 1/4 meter square. Bigger frames are awkward to work with.
The problem with using a square foot is that our clients generally use row spacings of less than 12 inches. If our frame catches two seed rows the count is quite a bit higher than if it catches only one seed row.
Since our clients use 6, 9, and 10 inch spacings, the quarter meter square always catches 2 rows worth of plants. The annoying thing about using a square meter is that a lot of the references are to plants per square foot. To convert the counts to plants per square foot, you have to divide the plant counts by 2.7, which can be tricky to do in your head.
I’m sure that some geometer in ancient Greece worked out the exact size of the square we’d need in relation to the seed row width to ensure that we always get a consistent reading. Now I just need to figure out how to pose the question to get the right answer.
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