Hutchinson ? Even while many of the crops in southwest Kansas died under this summer’s relentless drought, some cotton farmers are seeing a bright future for their crop.

While dryland cotton fared nearly as poorly as wheat and corn, irrigated cotton thrived in the heat.

Cotton gin operators and cotton farmers say the crop uses between one-half and one-third of the water that corn requires. And they say that could become important in the future, if the drought lingers and water reserves continue to decline.

The Hutchinson News reports that corn is still the crop of choice by a wide margin. The Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service says more than 4 million acres were planted to corn last spring, compared with only 67,000 acres of cotton.