There are farmers living through drought somewhere in the U.S. and around the globe every day. Irrigation can mitigate precipitation shortfalls, but rain-fed crops are at the mercy of the skies. Thankfully, there are crops that are true “water misers” that simply take less soil moisture to produce and are able to send roots down deep to mine moisture from the subsoil.

Farmers relying on rain to water their crops in dry country and producers under water allocations for irrigation have been incorporating these crops into their rotations for decades.

Sorghum as ‘life blood’

David Junker farms with his father-in-law around Culbertson and Palisade, Neb., where drought is part of doing business. Serving on the Nebraska Grain Sorghum Board over the past six years and as the current chairman, Junker has learned to appreciate the value of drought-tolerant crops such as grain sorghum in his region.

“We grow sorghum, corn, soybeans and wheat,” Junker says. “I’ve been farming for 12 years, and sorghum has been the life blood of my farm operation every year. Overall, my father-in-law has been raising sorghum for over 40 years.”

In the latter part of this growing season, the U.S. Drought Monitor map showed some level of drought in a wide swath cutting through most of the Great Plains states and into the West, with the most severe areas in western Montana and southwestern Texas.

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To the east, drought areas were centered in West Virginia, southern Ohio and northern Virginia, as well as some parts of the Southeast. When water from the sky is limited, rain-fed crops suffer. That’s where sorghum shines.

“The main reason we grow sorghum is that it keeps our farm profitable,” Junker says. “Our entire operation consists of dryland fields. My area of southwest Nebraska only averages around 15 inches of precipitation per year in good years. Combined with hot weather and sandy loam soil that doesn’t retain moisture, sorghum is an ideal crop for the area.”

Junker says that sorghum uses one-third less water to produce, compared with other row crops. “This makes it great for dryland or irrigation,” he says. “It just needs water at the right time through the growing stages to produce grain. I’ve personally experienced years of extreme drought where my farm was able to harvest a crop when all other dryland crops failed. Sorghum leaves may roll up, but [the plant] stays alive and waits for moisture.”

Junker farms about 1,500 acres, with between 400 and 750 acres in sorghum and summer fallow in the rotation. A typical four-year rotation for the farm includes sorghum, summer fallow, wheat and sorghum. “If we have weed problems, we plant soybeans or corn in the place of sorghum to change up the chemical composition and get the ground back to normal,” he says.

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What about wheat?

Roots are the key for drought-tolerant crops such as sorghum and sunflowers, with long tap roots that can go deep into the soil and collect moisture. But what about wheat?

Researchers at the University of Nebraska know that wheat is sensitive to drought conditions, but in a recent UNL news release, UNL post-doctorate research associate Milena Oliveria noted that many claim older varieties of wheat have deeper roots and are therefore more drought tolerant.

Daniel Schachtman, UNL professor and director of the Center for Biotechnology, is collaborating with Oliveria and other researchers in Nebraska’s Panhandle to test this theory. He gathered his first root samples in April at the UNL High Plains Ag Lab near Sidney, from 12 genotypes in 60 samples pulled from 60 plots.

WHEAT RESEARCH: University of Nebraska researchers are testing the theory that older, taller wheat varieties are more drought tolerant because of longer roots.

The study assumes that older, taller varieties of wheat cultivars will have longer roots and be better equipped to gather water and nutrients. “We’ll study the microbial bacterial communities inside and outside of the roots in rhizosphere soils and take them back to UNL and extract DNA and sequence the 16 s, which is like a barcode to be able to tell the different bacterial taxonomy in the samples,” Schachtman explained. The results of this study eventually could lead to the development of more drought-tolerant wheat cultivars.

Whether it is wheat, sorghum or another drought-tolerant crop, there is likely more interest than ever because of the importance of conserving groundwater resources in drought country.

“I truly believe that sorghum will be trending up over the next decades,” Junker says. “In areas that have water shortages and restrictions, this is a crop that could help farms maintain their bottom line and keep them in operation. It would help us keep the Ogallala Aquifer intact for the next generations of farms and farmers.”

A Nebraska Extension news release contributed to this article.