Land use changes, nutrient depletion, and drought can make plant roots grow deeper into the soil. But scientists question how that growth affects carbon in the soil.

During extreme soil drying, shrinking clay layers trap soil cations such as potassium, which become unavailable for the plant roots to take up.

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.

As early corn comes to market in July, growers are reminded that timing counts for a lot when it comes to planting corn. That's why Mississippi State University scientists are researching the effects of planting date, plant population and hybrid selection on field corn yields.

The 2014 corn planting season is certainly off to a slow start in Indiana and elsewhere across the Midwest, primarily due to delayed drying and warming of soils. The April 21 USDA-NASS crop report estimated that 1% of Indiana's corn crop had been planted as of April 20, compared to the 5-year average planting progress of 14%.

Changes in the economics of grain production after drought led to record-high farm incomes in 2012 could mean a shift in the demand for and prices of agricultural inputs for the 2014 crop, a Purdue Extension agricultural economist says.

In 2011, Texas farmers were left with bone-dry soils after a record breaking 7 month dry spell and record high temperatures soaring over 100°. The harsh circumstances lead to cracked soils and numerous other problems, but it gave farmers new motivation to really think about their irrigation methods and analyze what they were doing when applying water to their fields.

Currently in West Texas, we are in one of the worst droughts since the 1930's and 1950's. We are now entering the third year of this drought. Recently, I did some research on the drought of the 1930's and 1950's. In my hometown of Plainview, Texas (average annual rainfall = 20.17 inches), our rainfall for 2011 and 2012 was 5.63 and 10.48 inches respectively. In comparison, the two lowest years of precipitation during the 1930's was 10.16 and 13.75 inches in 1933-1934 and for the 1950's was 11.29 and 10.39 inches in 1953-54.