In the scorching summer of 2018, Europe was sweltering under one of the worst droughts the continent had faced in decades. Rivers ran so low that freighters were left stranded, while farmers in Germany watched their whole wheat, maize, and sugar beet fields shrivel up in the weeks before harvest. What happened next was unusual. In a trial field near Lake Constance in southwest Germany, while crops in the open faced trouble because of the heat, the potatoes growing under the shadow of solar panels not only survived the weather but actually performed 11% better than those growing in the sun.
