Abstract
We describe a stereological procedure to estimate in-vivo the total leaf surface area of plants. The procedure involves three systematic uniform random (SUR) sampling stages: (1) selection of plants from a canopy using the ‘smooth fractionator’, (2) sampling of leaves from the selected plants using the ‘fractionator’, and (3) area estimation of the sampled leaves using ‘point counting’. We illustrate the procedures and evaluate the estimator efficiency (expressed as the time required and the accuracy of the total area estimation) for chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum morifolium L.). Results showed the high efficiency of the fractionator with point counting for estimating plant leaf area.