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Dynamic Aspects of Soil-Water Availability to Plants

Dynamic Aspects of Soil-Water Availability to Plants By W. R. GARDNER United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Soil and Water Conservation Research Division, U. S. Salinity Laboratory, Riverside, California The concept of soil-water availability to plants has come to mean many things to many people. There have been numerous attempts to explain just what is meant by this concept (50, 5 7, 68, 108, 111, 137) . That there should be a problem in conceptually relating soil moisture to plant response is at­ tributed in large part to the fact that the soil-water-plant system is a dynamic system in which the plant is seldom, if ever, in equilibrium with the soil. Relatively large quantities of water move through the plant and are tran­ spired in a manner which is often governed more directly by conditions in the atmosphere external to the soil-plant system than by plant and soil factors. Much of the controversy concerning the relative availability of soil water stems from a failure to define this concept precisely and quantitatively. A rapidly developing quantitative understanding of the processes by which water moves from the soil through the plant to the atmosphere now makes it possible to replace previous concepts, which are of http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Annual Review of Plant Biology Annual Reviews

Dynamic Aspects of Soil-Water Availability to Plants

Annual Review of Plant Biology , Volume 16 (1) – Jun 1, 1965

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Publisher
Annual Reviews
Copyright
Copyright 1965 Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
Subject
Review Articles
ISSN
1040-2519
DOI
10.1146/annurev.pp.16.060165.001543
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

By W. R. GARDNER United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Soil and Water Conservation Research Division, U. S. Salinity Laboratory, Riverside, California The concept of soil-water availability to plants has come to mean many things to many people. There have been numerous attempts to explain just what is meant by this concept (50, 5 7, 68, 108, 111, 137) . That there should be a problem in conceptually relating soil moisture to plant response is at­ tributed in large part to the fact that the soil-water-plant system is a dynamic system in which the plant is seldom, if ever, in equilibrium with the soil. Relatively large quantities of water move through the plant and are tran­ spired in a manner which is often governed more directly by conditions in the atmosphere external to the soil-plant system than by plant and soil factors. Much of the controversy concerning the relative availability of soil water stems from a failure to define this concept precisely and quantitatively. A rapidly developing quantitative understanding of the processes by which water moves from the soil through the plant to the atmosphere now makes it possible to replace previous concepts, which are of

Journal

Annual Review of Plant BiologyAnnual Reviews

Published: Jun 1, 1965

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