Pima cotton - valued for its high-quality strong fibers - made a splash in California's San Joaquin Valley in the 1990s, reports Hiroko Tabuchi in the New York Times. 

“It's a just-add-water kind of location,” said Robert B. Hutmacher, a cotton specialist at the University of California's Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. “Of course, just-add-water used to be much easier to achieve.”

Durable and lustrous, Pima cotton became the fiber of choice for...