California's desert agriculture is hot stuff

CALIFORNIA – Stretching from the Death Valley to Calexico, California’s vast dry desert is home to a unique and important agriculture industry.

It’s a place where summertime temperatures often top the 115-degree mark. Where water supplies for irrigation depend on the Colorado River, but upriver states are claiming more of it. Where evapotrasporation – a reference rate of water use in unstressed turf grass – is 72 inches per year, but rainfall is rarely more than 4 inches per year.

Still, stalwart farmers grow dates, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, kale and more, plus plants for landscapin...