Overwinter

Plants

Plants are sometimes said to overwinter. At such times, growth of vegetative tissues and reproductive structures becomes minimal or ceases completely. For plants, overwintering often involves restricted water supplies and reduced light exposure. In the spring following overwintering many plants will enter their flowering stage. Farmers and gardeners use a process of "overwintering" to achieve early spring harvests of some crops by planting a species in fall, often under the protection of high or low tunnels. In plant pathology, overwintering is where a plant pathogen survives the winter, during which its normal crophost species is not growing, by transferring to an alternative host, living freely in the soil or surviving on plant refuse such as discarded potatoes.