Vascular plants is the phloem, (vessal) that transports food and the xylem transports water. Nomvascular plants are small with no vascular system. Which means non vascular plants do not have a phloem or a xylem.
The farmer could choose plants that lose less water, or store water more efficiently. He could then breed these plants together and repeat this process with the daughter plants, and their daughter plants, and so on.
This would make more plants with the chosen plants’ “good genes”, and therefore making more plants that can withstand drought.