Clemson University Launches Groundbreaking Project to Boost Water Efficiency and Crop Yields in Southeastern U.S.

By Denise Attaway

In a step toward advancing sustainable agriculture, Clemson University is launching a pioneering research initiative to enhance water use efficiency and crop productivity across the southeastern U.S.

The project is led by Qiong Su, assistant professor and Water Resources Program Team member in Clemson’s Department of Agricultural Sciences. Co-investigators are Jeffrey Adelberg, a horticulture professor in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, and Raghupathy Karthikeyan, Newman Endowed Chair professor of Natural Resources Engineering and a professor in the Department of Agricultural Sciences.

Backed by the USDA’s Research Capacity Fund (Hatch), this 5-year initiative addresses challenges farmers face in the region, including water scarcity, extreme weather events and saltwater intrusion. The project will deliver science-based, regionally tailored tools to support irrigation scheduling, crop planning and long-term field management.

At the core of the project is a multiscale modeling framework (MMF). This framework pulls together many types of information, like current and predicted weather, satellite and drone images, soil details, crop performance and results from both greenhouse experiments and field tests.