The weather in rural Manitoba this year has been all over the place which has made this study a bit more challenging than I had originally planned for. There have been days where it is -30 with a windchill and the next day may be +5. There is also very little snow on the ground considering it is almost December.
I feel that this weather is also confusing the plants as well because as I conduct my research and am examining my samples i notice some trees that still have leaves present and some that have lost theirs completely. This is making it a bit hard to determine if fossil fuels and other pollution factors are causing this or if it is the drastically changing weather patterns.
With this in mind I have decided to chose 2-3 replicates for each of my locations and those replicates also have varying degrees of leaf coverage.
My sample design has been working pretty well since it is haphazard and that allows me to have a bit of leeway when picking my replicates and the location limits where they are located.
Sounds like it is going well and you made some good adjustments. For your paper, remember to consider if there are other factors other than pollution that are different between the sites.