Wheat (Triticum spp.) dominates dryland grain crop production in the North American Great Plains and other regions with semi‐arid steppe climates. A common practice is to alternate winter or spring wheat with a 14‐ to 21‐mo fallow period to allow for soil‐water recharge, despite economic inefficiencies and environmental degradation. Replacing fallow with non‐cereal grain and seed crops often reduces future wheat yields due to increased water stress during grain fill. The use of annual forages may not have the disadvantages associated with grain and seed crops. The objective of this review was to determine benefits and challenges of incorporating annual forages into dryland wheat systems in semi‐arid steppe climates, using the Great Plains within the United States as a model system. Results indicate that: (a) cool‐ and warm‐season, annual grass and broadleaf species can be grown for forage across the region; (b) forage production will be less risky than grain and seed crop production under predicted climate‐change scenarios; (c) grazing annual forages may offer advantages (e.g., nutrient cycling, improved soil structure, added revenue from livestock) over mechanically harvesting annual forages; (d) the lack of infrastructure and local markets impede the use of annual forages to diversify wheat‐based cropping systems in the region; and (e) limited networking among researchers hinders the advancement in knowledge on how annual forages can be used to improve dryland wheat system resilience.

Corn is the major irrigated crop in the Texas High Plains (THP) and uses 53% of the total agricultural regional water resource budget. Currently, the declining water level of the Ogallala Aquifer, coupled with irrigation pumping restrictions by regional groundwater conservation districts, is challenging sustainable, high level corn production. The objective of this article is to review production levels and evaluate corn management practices in the THP with reduced or limited levels of irrigation. Long‐term field studies demonstrate that yield and water use efficiency (WUE) have increased significantly over the last forty years while seasonal corn evapotranspiration (ET) under full irrigation conditions has not increased. Among management practices, irrigation remains the single‐most important factor in corn production. With recent advances in corn breeding and genetics, irrigation requirements can be reduced by up to 25% in some years and result in similar yields as compared to irrigation amounts at the 100% ET level. Also, WUE is generally maximized at irrigation levels meeting 75–80% ET demand. Newly developed drought tolerant corn hybrids have been shown to provide yield benefits of 10–15% under limited (reduced) irrigation water levels. At the higher irrigation levels (75–100% ET requirement), corn yield increased as seeding rate increased initially but did not increase further when the seeding rate exceeded 94,000 seeds ha⁻¹. Also, a multi‐year planting date study indicated that high corn yields can still be achieved with a long‐season hybrid when planted in the middle of May and early June. When the planting date is delayed to late June and early July, mid‐ and short‐ season hybrids showed a yield advantage over the long season hybrids.

The genus Pantoea has historically been associated with two diseases of corn, Stewart's wilt caused by P. stewartii and necrotic or white leaf spots or streaks and stalk rot caused by P. ananatis. In 2020 and 2021, a sudden and unusual decline of corn stands was observed in corn fields in two counties in the Texas High Plains region. Symptoms observed included initial light green, elongated, slightly translucent, and nonchlorotic streaked lesions with nonwavy margins that developed on leaf blades during corn vegetative growth stages, with lesions becoming necrotic at the onset of crop reproduction. Additionally, stunting of affected plants, poor ear development, and stalk rot were associated with affected stands. Diagnosis of symptomatic tissues consistently recovered bacteria. BLAST searches of the partial 16S rRNA sequences of the bacterial isolates identified them as belonging to the genus Pantoea. Investigations of the pathogenicity of two bacterial isolates, B566 and B623, under greenhouse conditions relying on Koch's postulates resulted in the development of symptoms identical to those observed on symptomatic field corn plants. The two bacteria were also successfully recovered from symptomatic leaf and stem tissues, thus satisfying Koch's postulates. Sequence analysis showed that these isolates are closely related to P. ananatis but also phylogenetically distinct. The findings from this study provide evidence for a new disease of corn caused by two Pantoea species that can result in stand decline of infected corn plants.

Maize (Zea mays L.) production in the semiarid Texas High Plains (THP) often suffers exceptional yield reductions when irrigation cannot meet seasonal and peak water requirements. Drought‐tolerant hybrids may reduce yield losses resulting from water stress by altering seasonal soil water use patterns to permit greater uptake during yield‐sensitive growth stages. We examined the effect of irrigation capacity (8.47 and 4.23 mm d⁻¹) and planting rates (74,000 and 95,000 seeds ha⁻¹) during three growing seasons (2016–2018) on water use of three maize hybrids, two of which were considered drought tolerant. Changes in stored soil water were examined for the entire profile and for segregated depth increments (0–0.4, 0.4–0.8, and 0.8–1.4 m). Seasonal crop evapotranspiration averaged 754 and 592 mm across years for the high and low irrigation capacities, respectively. Irrigation level significantly affected seasonal change in stored soil water in 1 yr (2018) with greater depletion at harvest under the low irrigation capacity. Soil water use at 0.8–1.4 m comprised <4% of seasonal water use. Hybrids did not differ with respect to growing season crop water use. Stored soil water throughout the growing season within the examined depth increments were similar among hybrids and plant densities, with significant differences occurring infrequently and being inconsistent across years. Drought‐tolerant traits may have a diminished effect on transpiration in this study because of the dense soil‐limiting root proliferation or the high atmospheric demand at the study location.