Cimarron County, Oklahoma and Union County, New Mexico, neighboring counties in the Southern High Plains, are part of a vital agricultural region in the United States. This region experiences extended periods of cyclical drought threatening its ability to produce, creating an incentive for extensive center pivot irrigation (CPI). Center pivots draw from the rapidly depleting High Plains Aquifer...

Drought, one of the most important abiotic stress factors limiting biomass, significantly reduces crop productivity. Salinization also affects the productivity of both irrigated and rain-fed wheat crops. Species of genus Aegilops can be considered crop wild relatives (CWR) of wheat and have been widely used as gene sources in wheat breeding, especially in providing resistance to pests and disea...

Groundwater-fed irrigation has supported growth in agricultural production around the world by allowing farmers to buffer production against the risks associated with variable and uncertain climatic conditions. However, uncontrolled exploitation has also led to rapid rates of groundwater depletion in many semi-arid and arid regions that threaten farmers' long-term capacity to adapt to future cl...

Sedimentation (primarily from human land use) is a major threat to runoff-fed wetlands of the Great Plains of North America (playas), but it is unknown how many playas are turbid, how prevalence of turbidity has changed over time, and how turbidity is related to surrounding land use. We used remotely sensed imagery to assess sedimentation in the waters of over 7700 playa basins in Texas on four...

The effect of acclimation to drought in seedlings of Mediterranean evergreen sclerophyll Laurus nobilis L. (laurel) was studied in semiarid field conditions. The phytohormones abscisic acid (ABA), gibberellic acid (GA 3), zeatin (Z) and indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) contents, plant water potential, photochemical efficiency, and morphological characters were determined. Seedlings were acclimated to...

Elevated atmospheric [CO(2)] (eC(a)) often decreases stomatal conductance, which may delay the start of drought, as well as alleviate the effect of dry soil on plant water use and carbon uptake. We studied the interaction between drought and eC(a) in a whole-tree chamber experiment with Eucalyptus saligna. Trees were grown for 18 months in their C(a) treatments before a 4-month dry-down. Trees ...

iran is widely drought prone, considering its semi-arid climate. eleven wheat cultivars differing in yield potential and drought resistance were employed to determine the possible relationship among grain filling rate and duration, stem reserves remobilization and grain yield under either irrigated (ir) or non-irrigated (nir) conditions at gerizeh research station in sanandaj for a duration of ...

1. Globally, both climatic patterns and nitrogen deposition rates show directional changes over time. It is uncertain how woody seedlings, which coexist with herbaceous plants in savannas, respond to concurrent changes in water and nutrient availability. 2. We investigated competition effects between herbaceous vegetation and tree seedlings ( Colophospermum mopane ) under changed water and nutr...

Developing cultivars with improved adaptation to drought and heat stressed environments is a priority for plant breeders. Canopy temperature (CT) is a useful tool for phenotypic selection of tolerant genotypes, as it integrates many physiological responses into a single low-cost measurement. The objective of this study was to determine the ability of CT to predict grain yield within the flow of...

In countries where severe drought is an anticipated effect of climate change and in those that heavily depend on upstream nations for fresh water, the effect of drier conditions and consequent changes in the transboundary streamflow regime induced by anthropogenic interventions and disasters leads to uncertainty in regional water security. As a case in point, we analyze Jordan's surface water r...