NAU study finds drought-quenching bacteria protects plants from climate stress.
By 2050, when the world’s population will exceed 9 billion, food demand is expected to more than double.
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.
A team of researchers at Northern Arizona University’s Center for Ecosystem Science and Society recently published findings in the scientific journal Plant and Soil showing soil-borne bacteria could help mitigate crop losses due to drought.
Led by NAU doctoral student Rachel Rubin, the researchers conducted a meta-analysis, reviewing more than 50 scientific studies from throughout the world.
When plants in the studies were provided with growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), a diverse group of organisms known for their root and rhizosphere colonizing ability, vegetable and grain yields increased 20 to 45 percent.
The benefits of rhizobacteria were even greater in plants grown in a drought compared to their well-watered counterparts.
Industrialized agriculture—extensive irrigation, inorganic fertilizers and artificial selection for high-yielding varieties—may have weakened this linkage, rendering plants more susceptible to extreme climate events.
The authors hope sourcing PGPR from agricultural and natural areas that are already drought-prone will help farmers restore productivity to degraded agricultural soils.
“While relevance of human gut microbiome has been broadly accepted, wide-scale application of native soil bacteria with crop plants is still in its infancy.” Timmusk’s team is developing a consortium of rhizobacteria collected from Mount Lemmon in Arizona, the Negev Desert in Israel and the Tina Plain in Giza, Egypt, for field application in sub-Saharan Africa.

EU Gives $178 Million More to Combat East Africa Famine, Drought.
The European Union said it’s giving an extra 165 million euros ($178 million) to battle humanitarian crises in East Africa, including a famine in South Sudan and drought in Somalia.
From the total, 100 million euros will be allocated to help responses to the crisis in South Sudan and an influx of its refugees to neighboring countries, the EU said Monday in an emailed statement.
Humanitarian assistance for droughts in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya will be targeted with 65 million euros.
The new funds will “scale up and strengthen” the more than 400 million euros that the EU allocated last year to address the crises and the impact of the El Nino weather phenomenon on the region, the EU said.
The world’s first declaration of famine since 2011 was made last month in parts of South Sudan, where a civil war has raged for three years.
Somalia, itself roiled by decades of conflict, is facing mass hunger due to drought that was declared a national disaster on Feb. 28.

Drought in Kenya: 10 dead over grazing clashes.
At least 10 people have been killed in the latest clashes in drought-hit Kenya between rural communities fighting over pasture to graze their animals, police said Monday.
Herders from the Borana and Samburu communities fought a gun battle on Sunday in an area in the centre of the country called Kom, where both groups had taken their livestock to graze, said Charles Ontita, police chief of the town of Isiolo.
He said 10 people were killed in the confrontation and two wounded, "but we have deployed more officers there".
The deaths come a week after 13 people were killed in the western Baringo region when Ilchamus and Pokot herdsmen clashed over grazing at an area called Mukutani.
On Sunday in Mukutani, four police officers were wounded when suspected Pokot herdsmen fired on their vehicle as they escorted members of the Ilchamus community to safety, according to Baringo police.
In response to the spreading violence in both parts of the country President Uhuru Kenyatta on Friday announced the deployment of troops to Baringo and Laikipia regions.
Kenya, like elsewhere in the Horn of Africa, is suffering from drought, but with national elections due in August many suspect that politics is also at play in the recent violent confrontations.

Build more water storage.
The winter’s welcome wet spell has brought at least an unofficial end to California’s drought.
But has the rain washed away the most obvious lesson of the Golden State’s dry weather?
Quite possibly.
California was once a world leader on this front, building 10 massive reservoirs from 1927 to 1979.
Since then the Golden State has added 15 million residents while building no new reservoirs — and its leaders don’t even appear interested in trying.
Senate President Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, is crafting a bond measure that could go before voters in 2018 that in its latest iteration calls for spending $1.5 billion on water projects — but nothing on dams.
State lawmakers are eager to joust with the governor over big new state bonds — but for transportation projects, not water projects.
“If the most straightforward definition of drought is the simple mismatch between the amounts of water nature provides and the amounts of water that humans and the environment demand, California is in a permanent drought,” Gleick wrote recently in Wired magazine.
This big picture should matter more to California’s leaders than it appears to — especially to a governor in legacy-hunting mode.

Storm to increase fire threat, bring drought relief to central Plains late this week.
After moving out of the Rockies, the storm will intensify over the High Plains early Thursday.
“A high fire threat will continue though midweek for the central and southern High Plains, from eastern Colorado and New Mexico into western Texas,” said Sodja.
Areas impacted by wildfires in western Kansas and Oklahoma in early March are still under moderate to extreme drought conditions, and will again be under a high fire threat.
The recent drought across the region is also affecting the eastern plains of Colorado, southwestern Nebraska, western Kansas and Oklahoma, resulting in plenty of dry vegetation to act as fuel for any fires.
Fire bans are likely to be issued, and residents should be mindful of properly extinguishing cigarettes and barbecues.
Just to the east of these areas, sufficient recent rainfall will make for a less urgent fire threat.
“This will also be accompanied by more moist air, so the greatest fire threat will remain west of these areas, though gusty winds will exacerbate existing fires,” Sodja said.
Luckily, the end of the hot and dry weather is in the forecast for drought-afflicted areas.
As the area of rain and thunderstorm development tracks eastward into the weekend, drought areas across the Southeast can expect significant relief as well.

Drought conditions picking up across South Arkansas.
This is the first day of spring, and drought has crept into weather conditions in South Arkansas.
The most recent U.S. Drought Monitor indicates that most of South Arkansas has received adequate rainfall, but that the southern portions of Miller, Lafayette, Columbia and Union counties are “abnormally dry,” the lowest intensity of five levels of drought.
Most of Northwest Arkansas is in moderate to severe drought, with portions of Sebastian, Crawford and Franklin counties in extreme drought.
At least 77 percent of Arkansas is in some level of drought.
magnoliareporter.com has recorded 1.32 inches of rain in March, and a total of 11.17 inches since January 1.
Through this point in 2016, magnoliareporter.com had recorded year-to-date rainfall of 11.77 inches.
The National Weather Service in Shreveport gives Magnolia a slight chance of thunderstorms on Wednesday, with a 50 percent chance for storms on Friday.
Otherwise, daytime highs Monday and Tuesday will be in the mid 80s with overnight lows in the 50s.
High temperatures later in the week will be in the upper 70s.

You need to have the Adobe Flash Player to view this content. Please click here to continue. CENTENNIAL, Colo. – After a few months of unusually dry and warm weather, Denver hit 80 degrees on its final day of winter. Last week, the U.S. Drought Monitor showed the eastern half of Colorado in a “moderate drought”. There was one spot in a “severe drought” over Lincoln County and an “extreme drought” in far southeastern Colorado. Now, just one week later, the drought monitor shows large areas over metro Denver and northern Colorado have also deteriorated into “serious drought” conditions. Drought, mixed with hot, windy weather and a low relative humidity is creating dangerous fire conditions across the front range. “The fire season doesn’t care what month it…

You need to have the Adobe Flash Player to view this content. Please click here to continue. SALT LAKE CITY — For the first time since 2011, Utah is officially in the clear when it comes to drought conditions. The National Weather Service said thanks to the wet winter and the recent run of warm, dry weather, our snowpack is healthy and lower-level snow has melted into our rivers and reservoirs. At Jordanelle Reservoir on Sunday, Deb Hartley and Doug Thomsen spent the morning stand-up paddle boarding. “We’re just starting the season early,” Hartley said. “It’s so beautiful out, and it’s springtime and the weather is beautiful.” The warm temperatures…

As a wildfire grew and forced evacuations west of Boulder on Sunday, the National Weather Service issued yet another red flag weather warning for the region.
Forecasters cautioned about wind gusts up to 40 mph, relative humidity as low as 8 percent and the chance for rapid ignition of dry vegetation in sections of Larimer and Boulder counties.
Beyond Larimer County and neighboring counties, the eastern half of the state is also dry or in a drought.
As of Sunday afternoon, the wildfire burning near Boulder was about 62 acres with 20 percent containment containment, according to the Boulder Office of Emergency Management.
The Sunshine Fire comes on the heels of multiple fires across Larimer County in March, including two that destroyed homes west of Horsetooth Reservoir and north of Wellington and a third that ballooned to more than 2,000 acres north of Wellington before it was contained.
Fort Collins forecast Monday: Partly sunny, with a high near 77.
Winds could gust as high as 18 mph.
Tuesday: A 20 percent chance of showers after noon.
Mostly sunny, with a high near 62.
Mostly sunny, with a high near 61.