NSF Funds $6 Million Soybean Heat Study

A multi-university team led by Clemson's Shahid Mukhtar will study how heat and drought affect soybean yields across the Southeast.

Updated on Nov. 3, 2026 in Botany

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The National Science Foundation awarded a $6 million EPSCoR grant to a research team studying how extreme heat and drought affect soybeans, the second most widely planted U.S. crop. The four-year project, led by Clemson University geneticist Shahid Mukhtar, is part of a $77.8 million NSF award to 14 projects.

Why it matters

Extreme heat and drought threaten to reduce soybean yields by 40% over the next 25 years, and the Southeast is already disproportionately affected by the changing climate. The research aims to identify solutions that could help protect the crop's output and the food supply that depends on it.

The $6 million EPSCoR grant is part of a $77.8 million NSF award to 14 projects, and the team's four-year study will compare two soybean varieties, one of which tolerates hot and dry conditions better than the other. The source does not state how the 40% yield-loss projection was calculated, and the study's outcomes remain unknown.

The players

Shahid Mukhtar

Mukhtar is a geneticist and professor in the Clemson University Department of Genetics and Biochemistry who leads the soybean research team and said the study could serve as a model for other food crops such as corn.

National Science Foundation

The NSF is the federal agency that funds basic research across the sciences and awarded the $6 million EPSCoR grant and $77.8 million across 14 projects.

The details

The team, which includes scientists from Clemson, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Mississippi State University and the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center, will sequence RNA in greenhouse and field conditions to identify signals changed by heat and drought. Mississippi State researchers will use drones and unmanned robotic vehicles to record environmental conditions and image fields, while the team seeks microbes that could mitigate stress through seed coating or spray.

Mukhtar assumed his current Clemson post on July 1.
The four-year iPACERS project studies two soybean varieties under heat and drought conditions.

Big Picture

The grant is one of 14 projects in a $77.8 million NSF EPSCoR award round, which directs federal research funding to regional institutions in states that historically receive less of it. The Southeast study extends that program into climate-stressed agriculture.

For U.S. farmers and consumers, a projected 40% soybean yield drop would affect the supply and price of a crop used across food and feed markets. The research aims to produce practical tools, such as seed coatings or sprays, that growers could eventually adopt.

The takeaway

Heat and drought are already pressuring Southeastern crops, and research like this aims to build tools farmers can use before yield losses deepen. Studies of soybeans may also inform protections for other staple crops such as corn.