Pasture Problems: Drought Resistance

Abstract

The following brief summary may be given on the aetiology of drought resistance as exemplified by the conditions obtaining in 1911.From an agricultural point of view the value of a plant as a drought-resister is seen to be measurable by two standards: (1) Its power to give a good yield all through the period of drought; (2) its ability through living through the summer without materially adding bulk to the herbage to recuperate when the conditions become less severe. It has been shown that the phenomenon of drought-resistance is not associated with any one set of morphological characters, but that various growth forms are met with amongst the most successful plants. Further, a number of plants have shown themselves very tolerant, although having no apparent modifications to assist them, in which case there can be no doubt that their power of resistance is a simple outcome of their inherent vitality. Consequently it is perhaps dangerous to assign too great an importance to the possession of apparently useful modifications. A fair correlation is however seen to exist between a plant's manner of resistance and its growth form, as the following classification shows.