For example, the limitation of leaf growth as soil dries around the roots is often highly attuned to a reduction in soil water availability, with the result that biomass production is often substantially reduced when there is still plenty of water in the soil. To sustain yield as soil dries, which will be necessary as demands grow for judicious water management in agriculture, the plant biologist must initially address these regulatory processes, rather than focusing on processes that underlie stress-induced lesions in functioning and development or that contribute to desiccation resistance. This is because plants can sense and respond to changes in their immediate environment (for example, soil drying) and then regulate growth and functioning, for example, to avoid shoot dehydration stress. There is general agreement among plant scientists that much reduction of yield due to “drought stress” occurs at the wet end of the spectrum, well before plants are themselves stressed in the conventional sense of the word (see, for example, Richards 1993). The growth, development, and yielding of crop plants is highly sensitive to a reduction in water availability in the soil (see, for example, Boyer 1982).
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