Statistical considerations of using the 1-ft2 quadrat for monitoring peak standing crop and residual dry matter on California annual rangelands

•Peak standing crop (PSC) and residual dry matter (RDM) are the primary measures of production and grazing intensity on California's annual rangelands.•One of the most common methods of monitoring forage metrics is to clip 1-ft2 quadrats. The USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, universities, and other land managers have been using this methodology since the 1930s.•We used best linear unbiased predictors (BLUEs) to determine 95% confidence intervals for PSC and RDM. For both PSC and RDM, as the number of samples taken increased from 1 to 10, the predictive ability also significantly increased. We found no evidence of increased predictive power past 10 samples.