By Anthony Lane
When Colorado’s snowpack is deep and the state’s reservoirs are poised to fill, growing alfalfa is a safe bet for farmers in the upper Colorado River Basin. If the crop can be irrigated, it grows enough to be cut three or four times in a season, producing abundant and often profitable hay.
But the crop becomes risky in times of prolonged drought, when a lack of water reserves can disrupt irrigation plans and leave the plant thirsty and vulnerable to insects and disease.
Are there other forage crops that could thrive in Colorado’s increasingly dry climate while requiring little or no irrigation? That’s what Colorado State University researchers are trying to find out in a new, multi-year study exploring strategies for growing climate-resilient forage crops in western parts of the state.
“We’ve built this agricultural system on the West Slope that relies on snowpack to fill the reservoirs so farmers can irrigate all summer,” said Perry Cabot, a CSU Extension professor in Western Colorado with expertise in agricultural water management. “Now, we need to explore what happens when we don’t have that snowpack so we can help farmers with limited water still sustain their operations in a water-scarce environment.”
Cabot, who is based at the Western Colorado Research Center in Fruita, is one of four principal investigators in a multi-disciplinary project selected for CSU’s 2026-2028 Climate Ready Agriculture and Water Innovation Grant. The $200,000 award is funded jointly by CSU’s School of Global Environmental Sustainability, the Colorado Water Center and the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station.
Source : colostate.edu