Why would dormancy be necessary outside of suboptimal conditions?

[estación seca]

You're asking questions that would need to be solved by detailed research projects. Sounds like you could earn a PhD if you pursue these questions.

[RiverbankMudlark]

True, though I imagine for ecological reasons such research projects on other plants probably already exist and are being conducted right now. Changing climates probably mess with the normal dormancy of plants in their own native environments.

While I don't believe it had to do with dormancy (and I don't even know if rice has a dormancy), I vaguely remember reading something about a study that found warmer growing seasons were causing bigger yields of rice, but it held less nutrients.

[estación seca]

If research doesn't promise millions of dollars in returns, it doesn't get funded. No funding agency is interested in pure knowledge.

[Ray]

Originally Posted by RiverbankMudlark

I get the argument that "if a plant evolved to particular conditions, it thrives in those conditions," however, I don't think that implies that those conditions are all ideal to the plant.

For the very first plant in any particular environment, that's probably correct, and if it managed to survive and have offspring, then if the offspring had offspring, etc., for many generations, they would have evolved to having those conditions being ideal for that plant.

If your assumption about it not being ideal was valid, then moving it to whatever you consider to be "better" conditions would lead to the plant growing better, but that's not what happens. More likely, it will begin to weaken and fail because it is no longer in its ideal conditions.

[Roberta]

In a nutshell, that's the process of evolution by natural selection. The organisms that are best adapted to a given environment reproduce more successfully than those that are less well adapted. The results in a different habitat will be different, the concept is the same. That process drives speciation. The habitat where the species thrives is the "best" for that species even if it isn't your favorite...Orchids grow on every continent except Antarctica, at elevations from sea level to above tree-line, at latitudes from the tropics to the Arctic Circle. Obviously DIFFERENT orchids, of course. That's why there are some 25000 - 30000 species of orchids (that's not counting a couple hundred thousand hybrids), and nobody can grow all of them!