Farmer's Weekly

Making every drop of rainwater count

Drought is a recurring phenomenon in South Africa. Although low rainfall is the main cause of drought, the effectiveness of rainfall also plays an important role. Farmers have no control over the amount of rainfall they receive, but they can control how effectively it waters their crops or the veld. To better understand why, one needs to have a broad understanding of the water cycle.

THE BASICS

Let’s start with the precipitation part of the cycle (). Precipitation is water that falls to earth under gravity when atmospheric water vapour condenses to form clouds. The main forms of precipitation are rain, drizzle, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel (also called soft hail) and hail. Precipitation can have two fates: it can be so light

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