Producing 200 Bushels of Corn With 12 Inches of Water

A demonstration project in Texas is showing producers how to use less irrigation water and still produce the same amount of crops. After three years of drought and a depleted aquifer, the North Plains Groundwater Conservation District started the project to teach farmers to use methods like planting in dry ground verses prewatered ground, leaving larger spaces between plants and keeping old stalks on the field as new plants emerge to hold the earth’s moisture longer. The overall goal is to have farmers produce 200 bushels of corn per acre with only 12 inches of water. Read more (The New York Times).