Introducing Thirstwaves - New Tool for Crop Water Management

Mar 21, 2025
By Farms.com

New Metric to Track High Evaporative Demand in Agriculture

The University of Idaho and University of Colorado Boulder have introduced a new agricultural concept known as 'thirstwaves.' This innovative metric helps in understanding and preparing for prolonged periods of extreme evaporative demand, which significantly affects agricultural water use.

Developed by Meetpal Kukal from the University of Idaho and Mike Hobbins from the University of Colorado Boulder, thirstwaves focus on prolonged high evaporative demand periods—critical times when plants experience increased water stress. The research was detailed in their recently published paper in "Earth’s Future."

Thirstwaves are defined by instances when evaporative demand exceeds the 90th percentile for at least three consecutive days, based on the gridMET dataset covering the U.S. from 1981 through 2021. This new perspective shifts the focus from average daily values to extremes, which are crucial for understanding and managing water use in agriculture efficiently.

"We’ve been sort of obsessed about heat and heatwaves," said Kukal, stressing the importance of recognizing other environmental factors such as humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation that also drive evaporative demand.

The study highlights how regions like the Midwest, traditionally not considered extreme from an average evaporative demand standpoint, can emerge as hotspots when examining extremes. This insight is crucial for regions where traditional irrigation practices may not suffice under changing climate conditions.

Kukal is also developing a decision-support dashboard to assist farmers in southern Idaho, integrating these findings to optimize irrigation practices amidst these extreme conditions.

Thirstwaves offer a new layer of precision in water management, allowing for more informed decisions that could safeguard agricultural productivity against the backdrop of increasing climate variability.

"This idea of thirstwaves I think is really going to catch on," expressed Hobbins, recognizing the potential of thirstwaves to transform agricultural water management practices significantly.

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”

Introducing Thirstwaves - New Tool for Crop Water Management

New Metric to Track High Evaporative Demand in Agriculture

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Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

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