Although agricultural improvements have boosted food production in the past 50 years, drought and salinization threaten more than half of the planet’s arable land

Recent work could lead to better performing crop varieties

ORNL scientists are studying the unique metabolic mechanisms that allow CAM plants to conserve water, with the goal of introducing water-saving traits into bioenergy and food crops

Severe 2012 drought could have been predicted months in advance

Megadroughts are rare events, occurring only once or twice each millennium

Agricultural crops, grasses and garden plants alike can get sick and die when factors such as drought and excess sun force them to work harder to survive

3-day research event focused on water transport in plants and response to strains such as drought

An unprecedented, UA-led study, combining projections of future climate with more than 2 million tree-ring records spanning all of North America, has resulted in detailed forecast maps for the continent that reveal how forest growth will be impacted by climate change

The study made use of two large-scale droughts occurring just five years apart, in 2005 and 2010

“As our climate continues to warm, droughts will become more frequent and more extreme," researcher says