Fanjiang Kong studies the photoperiod-controlled plant development and evolution and domestication of soybean agronomic traits using genetic and genomic approaches. His work has focused on genetic and genomic dissection of soybean photoperiod flowering and classified a distinct flowering mechanism in soybean and the evolutionary genomics of soybean adaptation. He is particularly interested in the photoperiod and temperature mediated signal transduction on the development of growth habit and nodules in soybean which determine the agronomic value.