You are given a background paragraph that describes one or more causal or qualitative relationships such as a relationship in economics or a scientific law and a story that makes use of the concepts or the relationship described in the provided paragraph. You are also given a question about the story that requires an understanding of the relationship described in the background paragraph and the story. You need to come up with an answer to the given question; the answer will be a span from either the question or the story. In order to correctly answer the given question, you need to understand the relationship mentioned in the background paragraph and should be able to use it to understand that in the story. Your answer can not consist of any word that is not mentioned in any of these: the background paragraph, the story, or the question. You can directly copy and paste a span from the story or the question while answering the given question.

Background Paragraph: Alkali, or Alkaline, soils are clay soils with high pH (> 8.5), a poor soil structure and a low infiltration capacity. Often they have a hard calcareous layer at 0.5 to 1 metre depth. Alkali soils owe their unfavorable physico-chemical properties mainly to the dominating presence of sodium carbonate, which causes the soil to swell[1] and difficult to clarify/settle. They derive their name from the alkali metal group of elements, to which sodium belongs, and which can induce basicity. Sometimes these soils are also referred to as alkaline sodic soils.
Alkaline soils are basic, but not all basic soils are alkaline. 
Story: Mike grew tomatoes on his parcel of land and so did John. Mike's attempt was very successful, because he adjusted the soil's pH to a viable level for growing vegetables, and John didn't. Both parcels had soils with lots of sodium carbonate in them. John's experiment failed. 
Question: Which soil had less unfavorable physico-chemical properties?
Mike's.

Background Paragraph: One interesting thing that has been found in plants that are consistently exposed to drought, is their ability to form a sort of "memory". In a study by Tombesi et al., they found plants who had previously been exposed to drought were able to come up with a sort of strategy to minimize water loss and decrease water use. They found that plants who were exposed to drought conditions actually changed they way the regulated their stomates and what they called "hydraulic safety margin" so as to decrease the venerability of the plant. By changing the regulation of stomata and subsequently the transpiration, plants were able to function better in situations where the availability of water decreased. 
Story: Austria had two distinct climactic regions. The eastern region was exposed to a wet climate and had thriving vegetation, while the western region was exposed to drought. 
Question: Which region had more plants with an ability to change the way the regulated their stomates?
western.

Background Paragraph: Noble gases are also used to fill the glass tubes of lighted signs like the one in the Figure below . Although noble gases are chemically nonreactive, their electrons can be energized by sending an electric current through them. When this happens, the electrons jump to a higher energy level. When the electrons return to their original energy level, they give off energy as light. Different noble gases give off light of different colors. Neon gives off reddish-orange light, like the word “Open” in the sign below. Krypton gives off violet light and xenon gives off blue light. 
Story: John wanted to make some lighted signs for his business. To that end, he chose noble gases, neon, krypton, and xenon. First, he kept the noble gases in containers. He called it step A. Then he passed electric current through them. He called it step B. In the process, he came up with three signs, sign A, sign B, and sign C. Sign A used neon. Sign B used krypton, and sign C used xenon. 
Question: Which sign would have blue color, sign C or sign A?

sign C.