ABSTRACT
Plant growth occurs in phases and each phase has specific ecophysiological requirements. However, agricultural crops are often grown in a range of environments not necessarily fully suited to a particular crop, exposing one or the other phase of its growth to varying degrees of stress. Agronomic practices are the means to provide the best possible environment to a crop so that the rate of development of each phase is optimized for maximum exploitation of the genotypic potential in terms of economic yield.
