North Carolina growers know all too well how roller-coaster weather can wipe out a season. Last year’s string of flash floods, scorching heat and months of drought left fields parched or waterlogged.
Farmers across the state worry that without reliable forage, dairy and livestock operations will face crippling bills and consumers could see higher prices at the grocery store.
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“It definitely stresses the crops out by having all the ways of extremes, from all the rain to no rain,” said Michelle Pace Davis of Pace Family Farms in Clayton.
Enter drought-tolerant alfalfa. Christopher Pierce has led a forage-breeding program for more than 25 years at New Mexico State University’s Leyendecker Plant Science Research Center. His team’s latest trials pit identical alfalfa lines in two side-by-side fields: one irrigated all season, the other only through June.
“Based on one stress cycle of early irrigation termination, from July 2023 to February 2024, our research shows that many of our new varieties can survive eight months without regular watering and still produce economical yields the following year once they are irrigated again,” Pierce said.
According to the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, alfalfa ranks as the nation’s third-largest cash crop, supplying high-protein hay to the $50 billion U.S. dairy and livestock industry. But in the face of deeper droughts and hotter summers, some growers risk losing entire stands and the upfront investment to establish them.
To speed up traditional breeding, Pierce’s team uses marker-assisted selection to identify naturally occurring genes for drought tolerance and advance only the strongest survivors.
“They’re not transgenic," Pierce said. "They’re just the genes that are already in the populations, and we’re making sure that we select as many individuals that have the traits that we want."
“They’re not transgenic," Pierce said. "They’re just the genes that are already in the populations, and we’re making sure that we select as many individuals that have the traits that we want."
Complementing those efforts, data scientists at SAS map soil moisture and yield potential with AI-driven tools, guiding farmers on when and where to plant each variety for peak performance.
“Variability in weather patterns from year to year absolutely impact farmers’ planting decisions, and unfortunately, farmers are often unable to respond to early spring rains or cold snaps or the hurricane season,” said John Gottula, a precision-ag analyst with SAS.
Three drought-tolerant alfalfa lines will be released next year, each suited to different climate zones. If growers adopt them, they could apply spring irrigation to jump-start growth, let fields survive the driest months and then harvest again when rain falls.
Still, scaling seed production and ensuring small farms can access new varieties will require funding and outreach, according to Gottula.
As climate extremes become the norm, resilient crops may offer a blueprint for fortifying U.S. agriculture.