It’s a little thing, this new breed of drought-tolerant alfalfa bred on New Mexico State University research plots in the southern part of my arid state. But it provides another clue (behind a Google surveywall) about what the path forward in western water management might look like:

Adoption of a new crop takes time, so don’t expect NuMex to change agricultural water use overnight. But the crop’s evolution, and other adaptations to water scarcity by U.S. farmers in recent years, illustrates a central finding of a sweeping new federal study released last week: When less water is available, we use less water.