Water Relations of Plants and Soils

Everyone who grows plants, whether a single geranium in a flower pot or hundreds of acres of corn or cotton, is aware of the importance of water for successful growth. Water supply not only affects the yield of gardens and field crops, but also controls the distribution of plants over the earth's surface, ranging from deserts and grasslands to rain forests, depending on the amount and seasonal distribution of precipitation. However, few people understand 'fully why water is so important for plant growth. This book attempts to explain its importance by showing how water affects the physiological processes that control the quantity and quality of growth. It is a useful introduction for students, teachers, and investigators in both basic and applied plant science, including botanists, crop scientists, foresters, horticulturists, soil scientists, and even gardeners and farmers who desire a better understanding of how their plants grow. An attempt has been made to present the information in terms intelligible to readers with various backgrounds. If the treatment of some topics seems inadequate to specialists in certain fields, they are reminded that the book was not written for specialists, but as an introduction to the broad field of plant water relations. As an aid in this respect, a laboratory manual is available with detailed instructions for some of the more complex methods (J. S. Boyer in "Measuring the Water Status of Plants and Soils," Academic Press, San Diego, 1995).