Bryan Brock stared out at a rice field on Twitchell Island, nestled between the meandering river paths of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Brock, a senior engineer with California Department of Water Resources’ West Delta Program, rubbed his goatee and pointed at foot-tall emerald stalks. The plots were drenched in about 4in of water. Medium-grain rice was planted here in 2009 as a research project to see if rice could help the Delta survive the impacts of subsidence. The results have yielded both good and bad news.