North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Joe Hecksel" <jhecksel@voyager.net>]

The following post was on the Cider digest.  Do any of the list members 
care to address Mark's question?  How do researchers measure "drought 
tolerance"?

Subject: Drought Tolerance Info?
     From: "Mark Ellis" <mark@artisansrus.com>
     Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 07:36:11 +1100

     G'day All,

     Here in Southern Oz we are experiencing pretty much drought
     conditions, and have for the last couple of years. Looks like our
     farm will get only 1, maybe 2 irrigation runs this season so we
     are not expecting much in the way of fruit this year unless it
     buckets down a few times over the next month.

     So I think as orchardists we need to be a bit proactive in
     seeking to plant drought tolerant orchards in our drier areas. I
     expect the situation might be similar in some south western US
     areas as well.

     The US National Germplasm Repository
     http://www.ars-grin.gov/gen/apple.html have done some interesting
     work in sending teams to Kazakhstan (the wild apple birthplace)
     and collecting seed and scions. Some apples they collected came
     from rainfall as low as 300ml or 12"!!!

     Does anyone have info, sources or links to good resources in this
     regard?

     Thanks for any pointer in this regard.

     Cheers
     Mark E. in OZ

-- 
Joe Hecksel
Personal Webpage http://my.voyager.net/~jhecksel