LSU AgCenter Researchers Are Part Of $6 Million NSF Study On Developing Climate Resilient Soybeans

TOBIE BLANCHARD

BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA

An extreme drought across Louisiana last year showed how vulnerable soybeans are to stressful climate conditions. LSU AgCenter plant pathologist Jong Ham has been investigating how soybean seeds treated with bacterial agents can help soybean plants fight stress. His research is part of a larger study funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to determine how heat and drought affect soybeans.

The NSF awarded $77.8 million to 14 projects, including $6 million to the Interdisciplinary Program of Advancing Climate Extreme Resilience in Soybean (iPACERS) through the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).

"Every part of our nation has been impacted by the changing climate. We build a sustainable future for all by investing in climate resilience research and solutions across our country," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. 

The iPACERS project is led by Shahid Mukhtar, a geneticist and professor in the Clemson University Department of Genetics and Biochemistry. The project also includes researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Mississippi State University as well as Ham and four other scientists from the LSU AgCenter. 

During the four-year project, the iPACERS team will study two varieties of soybeans – one of which tolerates hot and dry conditions better than the other.

Mukhtar’s lab through Clemson and UAB will focus on understanding the molecular mechanisms of how heat and drought impact individual cells in a plant through five growth stages. 

Ham is working to identify microbial agents that can induce a stress protection response in soybean plants and aims to better understand the mechanics behind how the bacteria is offering these protections. His research is also looking at characterizing the microbial community in the soil and the seed treatment’s influence on it. 

“In the soil, there are millions of different species or microorganisms living in there, and there are dynamics within the soil,” he said. “We will explore this extremely complicated microbial community through cutting-edge bioinformatics approaches to better understand its structure and dynamics according to environmental stresses, especially heat and drought, which are critical issues in agriculture.” 

The AgCenter team, which also includes Changyoon Jeong, David Moseley, Kevin Hoffseth and Mark Schafer, will also study the physicochemical dynamics of soil and the root system of the soybean plants. The team plans to use technologies for structural imaging of plants and mathematical modeling of soil environments.

While the AgCenter works to understand the underground systems of the plant, researchers at Mississippi State will focus on the aerial part of the plant. They will record environmental conditions and take images of soybean fields using drones and unmanned robotic vehicles. That will allow researchers to integrate weather data with the molecular data collected by Mukhtar’s team at Clemson using artificial intelligence and graph theory.

Mukhtar said the study could be a model for other food crops, such as corn, the most widely grown crop plant in the United States.

The iPACERS project also features a comprehensive, multipronged approach to develop a diverse STEM workforce in the south and educate the public about climate change and its impact on food security.  ∆

TOBIE BLANCHARD: LSU AgCenter