Texas High Plains

Climate-Smart Commodities

The Texas High Plains is part of the US cotton belt, where continuous monocropping has deteriorated the region's soil productivity, while groundwater supplies have plummeted and costs related to pumping water have escalated. Water conservation and soil health are intertwined in complex soil-water relationships that are vital to the future of agriculture.

The climate-smart nature of cover cropping, minimum or no-till farming, and crop rotation has been demonstrated on research farms, however, the benefits of adopting these practices in water-limited environments – such as the Texas High Plains – have not been assessed on producer farms, and the barriers to adopting these promising climate smart commodities have not been identified.

And so the question remains – Why is it that some producers adopt climate smart technologies while a vast majority do not?

Bridging the Gap

The Texas High Plains Climate-Smart Commodities project at Texas Tech University brings together a diverse group of 20 producers across 10 counties to test 3 key climate-smart strategies:

The project will track both environmental and economic benefits to producers through the use of remote sensing tools and innovative soil moisture sensing technologies to monitor crop health and guide the targeted adoption of these climate-smart practices in west Texas.

By using the Texas Alliance for Water Conservation (TAWC) as a vehicle for disseminating findings through hands-on farm walks and demonstrations, we will bridge the gap between research and production – encouraging producers to adopt a combination of climate-smart commodities that best fit their operations.