Acclimation
/ak-luh-MAY-shun/🧑🌾 Cultivation● Basic
Also known as: acclimatization, acclimatisation
Acclimation is the process by which an individual plant adjusts to a change in its environment - brighter light, colder nights, drier air - over days or weeks rather than over generations. The change is physiological rather than genetic: leaves thicken, the waxy cuticle builds up and growth slows. Because it happens within a single plant's lifetime, it is also reversible.
Example
“Nurseries build a fortnight of acclimation into the schedule, moving young tomato plants to a sheltered outdoor bench before they are sold for planting out.”