$1.9M grant will support KU research on boosting drought tolerance in crops
LAWRENCE — A new National Science Foundation grant will bring $1.9 million to KU to test specific types of microscopic soil fungi for their potential to build drought tolerance in wheat and rice.
With the human population projected to grow for the next 50 to 60 years and the amount of arable land shrinking, building drought tolerance is a major strategy for increasing food production. It would reduce the need for irrigation and help protect water supplies.
The newly funded four-year project on building drought tolerance in these two crops is a collaboration among researchers at KU, Kansas State University, Arkansas State University and the University of Nebraska. Arkansas State is the lead institution on the overall project, with $2.2 million in funding as part of a total award of nearly $6 million.
Kansas produces 20% of all U.S. wheat, averaging more than 330 million bushels annually. Rice isn’t grown in Kansas, but around 45% of U.S.-produced rice—about 9 billion pounds—comes from Arkansas.
“Soil microbes can have a big influence on crop resilience to drought, and this project will test benefits of an important group of soil fungi that associate with plant roots,” said Jim Bever, the lead researcher at KU. Bever is Foundation Distinguished Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and a senior scientist at the Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research.
Other KU researchers involved in this part of the project, all at the Kansas Biological Survey, are Peggy Schultz, researcher; Liz Koziol, assistant research professor; and Terra Lubin, researcher.
KU researchers will test different species of a specific type of microscopic fungi —arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi — for their potential to confer drought tolerance to wheat and rice. KU also will provide all the fungal inocula for the four-institution project from INVAM, the largest collection of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in the world. INVAM is maintained at KU and serves as an international resource for research.
Additionally, the KU researchers will test drought response of wheat varieties and Kernza, the world’s first commercially available perennial grain, developed from intermediate wheatgrass at The Land Institute in Salina. Kansas Biological Survey researchers collaborate with The Land Institute to study Kernza, which lives for multiple years, producing 10-foot-deep roots that reduce soil erosion.
The project also will include interviews with farmers others involved in agricultural systems connected with the production of wheat and rice in Kansas, Nebraska and Arkansas.
Paul Stock, KU associate professor of sociology and environmental studies, said that he and his social science team would work through individual interviews and group conversations to get a clearer understanding of the challenges and opportunities for farmers in the region as they make decisions that affect the global food system.
“Farmers don’t make decisions in a vacuum,” said Stock, an environmental and rural sociologist with a primary interest in family farmers. “When considering the potential impacts of perennial grains for our future food systems, we need to understand the relationships and contexts that farmers operate in.
“By talking to farmers and others involved in these agricultural systems we can learn — beyond genetics and technical solutions — what needs to change in our agricultural systems that relates to banking systems, adaptation to regional ecology and the continued evolution of technology.”
The grant also will fund STEM training and workforce development for scientists and socio-economists, as well as educational outreach to local high schools, local citizens and industry partners.
The project is one of eight across the U.S. that have been awarded funding in FY26 through NSF’s Focused EPSCoR Collaborations. Awards for these projects total $39.9 million.
The KU departments of sociology, environmental studies and ecology & evolutionary biology are part of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. The Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research, a KU designated research center, houses a diverse group of ecological research and remote sensing/GIS programs. It also manages the 3,200-acre KU Field Station, a resource for study in the sciences, arts, humanities and professional schools.