Plants lose water through their leaves and it's called transpiration.  People lose water off their skin and it's called evaporation or sweating.  When a plant stops losing water and when people cant produce enough sweat to cool off, both overheat.  The weather influences that drive this water loss - water that needs to be replaced or the bodies begin to go into heat stress - are the amount of light (day length, cloud cover), relative humidity (it dries faster when air is dry and slower when humid - think desert versus Florida),  and windy (more wind, more drying).  Temperature is important, but not as much as these other drivers. Think freeze-drying  - a very successful process for removing water from...

Irrigated agriculture must always contend with salts. Five years of drought and its effects can magically disappear, but it will be back again. Low rainfall is the norm for California. We rely on winter rainfall to leach the salts from root zones that have accumulated salts from previous irrigations.  Salinity affects plant growth and understanding what it is and how it is measured and evaluated need to be understood.  Just having wet soil that is full of salts is not going to help a plant, it's going to add stress and eventually physiological and disease problems - 

Avocado consumption continues to grow both in the U.S. and around the globe. Greater demand creates an opportunity for growers to supply an expanding market with quality California fruit. More intensive production increases the need for attention to tree health, crop protection and irrigation practices. Many avocado root rot diseases are related to how growers manage water, and given the salt sensitivity of avocado and limited selection of salt-resistant rootstocks, water quality is an inherent driver of avocado productivity and quality.

In the California avocado-growing regions of the Central and South coast, water quality can be highly variable. Groves can rely on a combination of surface and groundwater yet, water high in...