Kim and Seki say that this project has led to several important discoveries.
Not only did they discover that external application of vinegar can enhance drought tolerance in the Arabidopsis plant, but they also found that this pathway is regulated epigenetically and conserved in common crops such as maize, rice, and wheat.
Initial testing in normal Arabidopsis under drought stress showed that genomic-wide expression of hda6 was linked to activation of the biological pathway that produces acetate, the main component of vinegar.
In the mutated plants, they found that under the same conditions, this pathway was activated even more, and plants produced larger amounts of acetate.
The team next measured acetate levels in normal plants and found that the amount of acetate produced by plants during drought directly correlated to how well they survived.
These results predicted that increasing the amount of acetate in plants could help them survive drought.
The team tested this hypothesis by growing normal plants in drought conditions and treatment with acetic acid, other organic acids, or water.
We expect that external application of acetate to plants will be a useful, simple, and less expensive way to enhance drought tolerance in a variety of plants."
Nature Plants.
DOI: 10.1038/nplants.2017.97

Dixon drought over.
Dixon edged Josef Newgarden by 0.57 seconds to claim his first victory at Road America.
Dixon’s 41st career victory moved him within one of tying Michael Andretti for third on the all-time list.
He held off Newgarden and the three other Penske drivers who started up front.
Newgarden’s teammate Helio Castroneves, the pole sitter, finished third.
The Chevrolet-powered Penske team was the talk of the track all weekend after dominating through practice and qualifying.
Dixon took the victory lap, finishing off a day that started with fuel pressure issues during warmups.
“On the warmup lap, we were just trying to see if the car was going to run.” He was thankful for the work of his crew, which he said had to replace the fuel cell, among other last-minute fixes.
Dixon held off Newgarden on the restart with eight laps to go in the 55-lap race.
“I knew once it kind of plateaued after five or four laps, we were going to be OK.” Until that point, Newgarden thought he might have had an edge with Dixon on tires.

"This basic scientific research has the potential to be able to improve farming productivity not just in Australia, but potentially in other countries that suffer from drought stress," Dr Pogson said.
"If we can even alleviate drought stress a little it would have a significant impact on our farmers and the economy."
Dr Pogson said the research found chloroplasts in cells surrounding the pores on leaves, called stomata, can sense drought stress and thereby activate a chemical signal that closes stomata to conserve water.
"This finding was completely unexpected and opens new avenues of inquiry into how chloroplasts can contribute to plant responses to the environment," Dr Pogson said.
"Boosting the levels of this chloroplast signal also restores tolerance in drought-sensitive plants and extended their drought survival by about 50 per cent," Dr Chan said.
"Dr Pornsiriwong, who has started her own research lab in Thailand, is currently investigating breeding strategies that naturally enhance levels of this drought tolerance-promoting chloroplast signal in rice," Dr Chan said.
The research was funded by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology and was a collaboration between ANU, the University of Adelaide, University of Western Sydney, CSIRO, Kasertsart University (Thailand) and the University of California San Diego (United States).
The research has been published in eLIFE.
More information: Wannarat Pornsiriwong et al. A chloroplast retrograde signal, 3′-phosphoadenosine 5′-phosphate, acts as a secondary messenger in abscisic acid signaling in stomatal closure and germination, eLife (2017).
DOI: 10.7554/eLife.23361

Besides that, his family’s herd had expanded from 100 to about 400, the old corrals tended to get too wet, and his son, Greg, was coming home to join the operation.
On June 20, the Wanner feedlot was one of four stops during the North Dakota Stockmen’s Association’s 15th annual feedlot tour.
The new corrals at the Wanner place are made of metal pipe, keeping the cattle away from the dangers of road and track.
The sunflowers they planted were coming up, but one of the rare storms that came through the area brought hail, destroying 70 percent of the crop.
They might try to utilize the sunflowers as feed, though they aren’t close enough to the ranch to make that practical.
Scott Ressler, environmental services director for the Stockmen’s Association, said struggles with drought were the story throughout the feedlot tour.
The dry conditions may be an opportunity for some of the feedlots in the area, if they have feed available, he said.
The annual feedlot tour attracts 50 to 200 people, Ressler said.
After 15 years of putting on the tour, Ressler said he’s still surprised to see how much people can learn by walking around a selection of the state’s feedlots.
"It just gives us a lot of options to make a living versus just farming," Wanner said.

DAUGAARD: Drought to test South Dakota again.
Things are worst in the northcentral part of the state, particularly in Corson, Dewey, Campbell, Walworth, McPherson, Edmunds and Potter counties.
Right in the center of this seven-county area the drought monitor now indicates extreme drought conditions.
Looking at the U.S. map, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota are the only states currently experiencing severe drought.
Drought is not unusual here.
In the first few years of statehood, South Dakota experienced a prolonged drought that lasted from 1887 until the mid-1890s.
More than anyone, our farmers and ranchers feel the impact.
In response to the increasingly dry conditions, I have declared a statewide emergency to provide producers some relief.
Under the emergency declaration, farmers and ranchers may cut and bale state highway ditches adjacent to their property.
The emergency declaration, drought task force and the potential availability of CRP acres will provide some relief to those who are suffering from the drought, but government help is limited.

State officials want a new conservation approach that imposes a “water budget” on millions of urban customers.
In particular, the State Water Resources Control Board needs legislative approval before it can tell water agencies how to set rates.
The budget approach assures that people who consume less water also pay less.
The framework also requires local agencies to adopt consistent water shortage contingency plans, which require certain conservation steps when a “Stage 1” or “Stage 2” drought is declared.
Most water agencies already have such plans, but they all have different conservation requirements.
This would allow state officials to declare a statewide “Stage 2” drought with predictable water savings as a result.
A handful of water agencies across the state have already adopted budget-based rates.
The district adopted budget-based water rates in 2011.
“With this budget approach, not only do they have clarity in what they need to do, but it also gives them the choice,” Lopez said.
The region’s water agencies were required to impose conservation targets, which required some customers to let landscaping die.

Pulling through another drought.
Things are worst in the northcentral part of the state, particularly in Corson, Dewey, Campbell, Walworth, McPherson, Edmunds and Potter counties.
Right in the center of this seven county area the drought monitor now indicates extreme drought conditions.
Looking at the U.S. map, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota are the only states currently experiencing severe drought.
Drought is not unusual here.
The conditions were so bad that some people started packing to move back east.
Gov.
More than anyone, our farmers and ranchers are feeling the impact.
Under the emergency declaration, farmers and ranchers across the state may cut and bale state highway ditches adjacent to their property.
The emergency declaration, drought task force and the potential availability of CRP acres will provide some relief to those who are suffering from the drought, but government help is limited.

For Harvick, it was the first victory since Stewart-Haas Racing switched to Ford this season.
It was Ford’s seventh victory of the season.
Ford won eight Cup races last season, and seven came exclusively from Team Penske drivers.
Kyle Larson and Jamie McMurray started on the pole for Chip Ganassi Racing and hoped to give the owner a sweep of Sunday after Scott Dixon won the IndyCar race at Road America in Wisconsin.
But Larson, the points leader, was never a factor and finished 26th.
Kyle Larson, the NASCAR points leader, started on the pole at Sonoma in a Ganassi car.
Hamilton appeared to stop his car right in front of Vettel, causing Vettel to collide into him.
Vettel was given a 10-second stop-go penalty, but Hamilton lost valuable time changing a loose headrest at the same time that Vettel served his time penalty.
At Norwalk, Ohio, Steve Torrence raced to his fourth Top Fuel victory of the season, beating Doug Kalita in the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals.
Points leader Butner had his third victory of year, topping teammate Greg Anderson with a 6.601 at 210.50 in a Chevrolet Camaro.

Helping cattle deal with drought.
I have copied it below.
“Drought generates increased poisoning risks for livestock due to reduced availability, timing shifts and physiological changes in the “desired” forages on rangelands and pastures.
Impacts of toxic and poisonous plant consumption can be as obvious as rapid death, as gradual as hair loss, or as discrete as early abortions and/or failing to breed.
Drought reduces the production level and availability of desirable forages causing livestock to be more willing to consume “novelty” plants and/or plants that had a previous negative feedback.
Native toxic plants are not recognized as strange by managers since they had been on-site previously and never generated a problem.
Examples of this might be consumption of Poison Suckleya which greens up on the borders of drying reservoirs (acute and lethal) or consumption of Death Camas sprouting in meadows after grass has thinned out the previous fall.
Drought generates poisoning risk due to shifts in desirable plant production if livestock managers do not shift “turn out” dates to match production.
An example of this situation is cattle moving under coniferous trees and consuming pine needles which contain tannin resulting in abortions.
Drought can cause physiological shifts in normal plants that generate toxic conditions such as forcing plants to pull very hard for nutrients from their roots or disrupting cell structure so that a plant cannot disperse nutrient normally through its vascular system.

Extreme weather events linked to climate change impact on the jet stream.
Unprecedented summer warmth and flooding, forest fires, drought and torrential rain — extreme weather events are occurring more and more often, but now an international team of climate scientists has found a connection between many extreme weather events and the impact climate change is having on the jet stream.
"We came as close as one can to demonstrating a direct link between climate change and a large family of extreme recent weather events," said Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science and director, Earth System Science Center, Penn State.
However, while the models are useful for examining large-scale climate patterns and how they are likely to evolve over time, they cannot be relied on for an accurate depiction of extreme weather events.
These conditions occur when the jet stream, a global atmospheric wave of air that encompasses the Earth, becomes stationary and the peaks and troughs remain locked in place.
The jet stream can then behave as if there is a waveguide — uncrossable barriers in the north and south — and a wave with large peaks and valleys can occur.
However, when these temperature gradients decrease in just the right way, a weakened "double peak" jet stream arises with the strongest jet stream winds located to the north and south of the mid-latitudes.
The researchers looked at real-world observations and confirmed that this temperature pattern does correspond with the double-peaked jet stream and waveguide patter associated with persistent extreme weather events in the late spring and summer such as droughts, floods and heat waves.
They found the pattern has become more prominent in both observations and climate model simulations.
"We are now able to connect the dots when it comes to human-caused global warming and an array of extreme recent weather events," said Mann.