Kansas State research shows it's reasonable to expect drought-tolerant corn hybrids to serve as a type of insurance policy to sustain yield potential under water-limited environments.

Tillage practices that conserve moisture, plants that use water more efficiently and soil with more organic matter have produced higher yields even in dry conditions, according to South Dakota State University soil scientist David Clay.

If a recent study is any indication, getting more crop production from every inch of water is going to become even more important in the near future.The Institution of Chemical Engineers recently released a report describing the amount of hidden water used in food and drink production, estimated at up to 1.8 million liters per person each year — equivalent an Olympic-size swimming pool.

A team of researchers led by Carnegie Institution for Science's Anna Michalak and Yuntao Zhou has shown that the widespread drought in 2012 was associated with Lake Erie's largest dead zone since the mid-1980s.

Variable soil types, knolls, flooding and drought have left many growers with extreme in-field variability of soybean maturity. There are areas in fields where the soybean seed is 13% or less moisture adjacent to areas with green seed.