“Nothing surprised me,” he said. “We simplified the system—and nature filled the gaps.”

“I saw cattle bring the desert back,” Ray says, “and transform it back into native rangeland. It changed the local climate. He’s getting more rain now.”

Drought resilience isn’t something you buy in a jug or fix in one season. Long-term work from Dakota Lakes and other dryland regions shows that rotating warm- and cool-season row crops builds stronger roots and more reliable soils, helping corn handle dry years better than no-till alone ever could.