Id suggest interplanting two crops, one that tolerates wet extremes, one that tolerates the dry. Depending on how the season goes you can either let the extreme conditions thin one or the other, or you can do that manually as the crop grows (many vegetables give a yield when thinned early if they are used for leaf or roots).
I’m not sure if wet tolerance and drought tolerance are inversely correlated, but it’s possible they aren’t. It’s even possible they might be positively correlated sometimes.
I originally thought, “Man, I want both extra heat tolerance and extra cold tolerance, and I assume they’re inversely correlated.” But according to Carol Deppe in Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties, they tend to be positively correlated, and positively correlated with extra drought tolerance as well. According to her, it’s because those aren’t separate traits – they all stem from the same trait, which is ability to handle stress in general.
So there’s hope that wet tolerance and drought tolerance may be possible at the same time, for a similar reason!
I know I have seen plants that are both wet and drought tolerant, and I have also seen plants that can’t handle either.
There are definitely some adaptations that enhance one at the expense of the other, but it’s possible that trying to breed for both will give you plants that are more stress tolerant in general, which would be a great thing to select for.
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A possible example of this: my spaghetti zucchinis in 2022.
I forgot I had the hose on and left it on for twenty-four hours twice in my 2022 growing season (to the sorrow of my pocketbook 
). This overwatered and killed some of my plants in the polyculture, including some of the pepo squashes. Others, like the spaghetti zucchinis, seemed completely unfazed.
Those were the same plants that, when I refused to water anything for two weeks immediately afterwards because I’d spent five times my entire monthly water budget in one day, kept on flourishing while others died from drought.
So yeah, that seems like a potential example of the sort of trait you’re hoping to find.
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There always has to be a trade off, otherwise all plants would have all of the beneficial traits. Just tolerating conditions isnt enough- plants need to grow competitively in them if they are going to complete their lifecycle or hold the territory over other species of plants.
Humans can interfere in that competition between plant species, but if we do it too much we reduce the total amount of photosynthesis taking place, which eventually leads to the life and health of the soil decreasing.
I generally try to avoid the word “always.” I believe that there usually is a trade-off, but I am open to the idea that there may be some improvements that have no negative costs.
Trade-offs may be things that an individual gardener thinks is totally worth it: for instance, less disease resistance to diseases that aren’t present in the gardener’s soil, or a shorter shelf life when the gardener plans to eat everything as soon as they pick it anyway.
“It is possible to draw the wrong conclusions from an experience.”
Experience is the great teacher, but if coupled with closed mindedness or lack of careful reflection, can cause missed opportunities.
For example, suppose I try a crop for the first time and do not have success. I conclude that crop is not possible for me.
Like with most things in life, the results of an outcome depend on many factors. If I am new to growing a crop, some of the factors are going to be unknown.
Is it the wrong timing? Wrong genetics? Not enough population size? Those are the three lazy controls I like to use. Most everything else feels like pampering.
Yeah, I agree. For me, whether I give something a second try or not depends largely on how much I care. If I shrug and move on, one attempt was enough. If I feel sad and regretful that it didn’t work, clearly I should do more research and try something else that seems likely to be more promising for me with that species.
Growing from seed, if I run out of seeds that item is done. I won’t buy seeds again.
Growing from clones, I’ll generally plant some inside just in case so I can try again.
Particularly in my new area, I’m going to be growing a bunch of stuff I ran out of seed for at my old property. Give it another chance.
That makes a lot of sense. It’s a different climate, so different things may very well thrive there.