What is the meaning of drought resistant?
Drought resistance or tolerance is a broader term applied to plant species with adaptive features that enable them to escape, avoid, or tolerate drought stress (Levitt, 1980). Drought escape is the capability of the plant to complete its life cycle before onset of drought stress. In botany, drought tolerance is the ability by which a plant maintains its biomass production during arid or drought conditions. Some plants are naturally adapted to dry conditions, surviving with protection mechanisms such as desiccation tolerance, detoxification, or repair of xylem embolism.As a rule, native plants are considered more drought tolerant than non-native plants. While this is not always true, native plants are often more adapted to or tolerant of local growing conditions and this can help with water conservation.Drought resilience means the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to the anticipated consequences of drought conditions, particularly long-term or extreme drought.
What is the best crop to grow in a drought?
To get the most out of the water you apply, grow high yielding vegetables like beans, chard, mustard, eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, squash, quinoa, and amaranth. Consider which crops need the most water and when: Some beans and sweet corn need considerable water to produce a good crop. Dry harvested crops: such as cotton, maize (for grain production), sunflower, etc. During the late season stage these crops are allowed to dry out and sometimes even die. Thus their water needs during the late season stage are minimal.
Why is it called a drought?
The IPCC Sixth Assessment Report defines a drought simply as drier than normal conditions. This means that a drought is a moisture deficit relative to the average water availability at a given location and season. Unlike hurricanes, drought conditions can continue for months or even years, causing long term damage issues.Drought can develop quickly and last only for a matter of weeks, exacerbated by extreme heat and/or wind, but more commonly drought can persist for months or years.
What are the warning signs of a drought?
When some places are in a drought, they may be dry, hot and dusty; cracks may appear in the soil, and rivers, lakes, streams, and other sources of water may go dry. Other places in drought get some rain, but not as much as they usually receive during that season. Temperature and amount of rainfall are the most noticeable drought indicators, but water levels in streams, rivers, and lakes; the amount of moisture in the soil, and the amount of snowpack in the mountains are also important drought indicators.A drought means that a place has less precipitation (rain or snow) than normal over a few months or even longer. What causes a drought? In order to answer to that question, let’s explore the connections between weather, climate, the water cycle and drought.