Popcorn and ConAgra

Dr. Oscar Rodriguez Author

01/07/2016 Added

228 Plays

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Popcorn and ConAgra presented by Dr. Oscar Rodriguez

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[00:00:00.573]Thank you for the opportunity.
[00:00:02.732]In the time it takes to pop two microwave bags,
[00:00:05.391]I have to tell you what we're doing.
[00:00:07.398](audience laughs)
[00:00:09.198]There's gonna be a lot of short bullet points.
[00:00:14.177]Basically this is joint research agreement
[00:00:17.169]between ConAgra and the University of Nebraska.
[00:00:20.212]In 2012 this agreement was reached
[00:00:24.682]and then we initiated research projects
[00:00:27.863]and I mean, initial projects were approved
[00:00:31.228]and initiated operations.
[00:00:36.129]I do most of my work at the Mead Agronomy Farm.
[00:00:39.747]These are some of the projects that we're working on.
[00:00:42.662]The quality protein popcorn,
[00:00:46.167]led by David Holding.
[00:00:48.435]I'm not gonna talk about this.
[00:00:50.200]The popcorn diversity study
[00:00:52.504]that Aaron Lorenz initiated,
[00:00:54.627]and now James Schnable is taking over.
[00:00:58.379]The oleic acid effect in volume expansion,
[00:01:00.667]I'm in charge of that one.
[00:01:02.386]The Goss wilt genetic study.
[00:01:05.856]Collaborating with Tom Hoegemeyer,
[00:01:08.621]the production of a popcorn double haploid inducer.
[00:01:14.077]We do some hybrid development.
[00:01:16.284]Not as much as we used to do in Brookston with ConAgra,
[00:01:19.905]but we're still doing that.
[00:01:22.250]One of my responsibilities also is
[00:01:24.166]provide ConAgra with foundation seed
[00:01:27.533]so they can increase their hybrid seed production.
[00:01:32.715]We're working on a dwarfing project.
[00:01:35.400]And dent by pop.
[00:01:38.262]In the dent by pop there have been a lot of dent lines
[00:01:42.965]that lost their plant variety protection,
[00:01:46.958]and so we're using the heterotic pattern of corn
[00:01:50.662]to basically piggyback in that heterotic background
[00:01:55.607]and try to improve the yield of popcorn.
[00:02:01.585]Popcorn, one of the most important traits
[00:02:07.048]is volume expansion and also the tenderness.
[00:02:13.594]ConAgra for the past 60 years,
[00:02:17.666]it's been the leader in volume expansion.
[00:02:20.045]Most of the competitive companies
[00:02:22.147]have not even been able to approach with their breeding.
[00:02:26.930]And you can see the comparison of volume expansion
[00:02:31.934]with the competitors.
[00:02:33.517]And basically ConAgra handles two types of popcorn,
[00:02:37.022]the proprietary Orville Redenbacher
[00:02:40.784]and the Act II which is some of the Act II
[00:02:44.139]varieties are sold commercially
[00:02:45.637]for any producer to use under contract.
[00:02:53.942]On the oleic acid study,
[00:02:56.740]what we found is that after exhaustive
[00:03:01.140]chemical analysis is that
[00:03:06.399]the presence of certain oleic acids,
[00:03:10.089]with those you can differentiate which varieties
[00:03:12.968]have a larger volume expansion and which don't.
[00:03:16.090]And basically these are oleic acids with long chains.
[00:03:22.023]Basically is a eso-con-a-soig,
[00:03:24.545]which is peanut oil, palmitics, stearic,
[00:03:29.398]and the ratio of polysaturated to saturated.
[00:03:34.381]And with those oleic acids,
[00:03:41.594]I can have, for example,
[00:03:43.240]this is dent corn, this is high volume expansion,
[00:03:47.244]low volume expansion, medium, and mushroom types.
[00:03:50.924]So with that information from the oleic acids
[00:03:54.361]I can differentiate my high volume expansion hybrids
[00:03:59.202]at a 90% certainty, which is very good.
[00:04:03.416]So we're using this information to try
[00:04:06.734]to select faster for volume expansion.
[00:04:11.415]This is the double haploid inducer project.
[00:04:16.210]Basically popcorn has evolved
[00:04:20.758]separately from dent corn.
[00:04:22.836]And although Roch always gets mad with me when I say it,
[00:04:25.599]but popcorn is a weed compared to dent corn.
[00:04:30.591]Because it has evolved separately
[00:04:33.207]because it has a trait which is dent sterility.
[00:04:38.304]In other words, you cannot cross,
[00:04:41.703]if you use popcorn as a female
[00:04:43.862]and dent corn as a male, you don't get any seed.
[00:04:46.962]But if you use dent corn as a female
[00:04:49.423]and popcorn as a male, the cross is successful.
[00:04:54.020]But to use this double haploid inducer,
[00:04:57.120]the double haploid is a special plant
[00:05:00.382]where you can in one generation obtain pure lines
[00:05:04.561]instead of selfing for eight or 10 generations.
[00:05:07.823]So we are transferring the genetic incompatibility
[00:05:14.690]from popcorn into this dent corn double haploid inducer.
[00:05:19.352]Right now we're in back rows four,
[00:05:22.452]I'm sorry, we just finished back rows three
[00:05:24.053]and back rows four is going to Puerto Rico
[00:05:26.851]for winter nursery.
[00:05:31.859]We have to always say,
[00:05:35.736]close attention to the markets
[00:05:37.250]in terms of what popcorn is doing.
[00:05:39.827]And lately there has been a shift
[00:05:42.977]with the ready to eat market.
[00:05:45.037]Before, microwave popcorn had
[00:05:49.081]the majority of the sales.
[00:05:50.922]And it has shift in the recent years.
[00:05:54.580]Where now the ready to eat
[00:05:56.379]has a much larger market than microwave popcorn.
[00:06:03.529]There's some problems with this.
[00:06:05.868]It is estimated that by next year probably
[00:06:10.758]the ready to eat will reach 4.8 billion dollars of sales.
[00:06:17.327]I'm sorry, in conjunction,
[00:06:18.418]but 75% of the sales will be ready to eat.
[00:06:24.183]You've seen these bags everywhere in the supermarkets.
[00:06:28.047]One of the problems with the ready to eat is
[00:06:32.284]the shape of the flake because
[00:06:37.083]butterfly shapes are used and they have open wings.
[00:06:41.463]Those wings tend to break,
[00:06:43.043]and you get up to 30% of broken pieces.
[00:06:47.744]Like this, we sieved this bag
[00:06:50.562]and all of those are broken pieces.
[00:06:53.441]The major types of flakes that you find in popcorn,
[00:06:57.811]these are the regular butterfly flakes.
[00:07:01.177]They're called bilateral and multilateral.
[00:07:04.637]And you also have the mushroom.
[00:07:06.494]The problem with the mushroom
[00:07:07.493]is that it's partially popped
[00:07:09.733]and it has a polymerized external surface
[00:07:13.750]that is very, very chewy.
[00:07:16.095]What we're looking for is for this,
[00:07:18.816]what is called unilateral types of flakes.
[00:07:22.751]And we have part of the results from our study,
[00:07:27.813]if you see here dent corn is close to mushroom
[00:07:33.024]in our study for oils on expansion,
[00:07:37.713]so the idea was to take some of the popcorn lines
[00:07:41.160]that have a lot of dent corn in their background
[00:07:44.655]and look for rounder types of flakes.
[00:07:49.369]And we found it.
[00:07:51.312]There are a couple of hybrids that we developed
[00:07:54.592]that have this unilateral type of flake
[00:07:59.221]where it's not gonna break like
[00:08:03.166]in the case of the regular butterfly,
[00:08:07.368]and there are parts that are completely popped
[00:08:10.746]compared to the mushroom.
[00:08:13.788]The advantage is that when the flavor
[00:08:17.282]is added they put 'em in what they're called tumblers.
[00:08:20.022]It's like a cement mixer.
[00:08:22.889]So they throw the flavor and they tumble them
[00:08:25.670]and you get all of those wings, they break apart.
[00:08:30.375]So now with this new types of hybrids,
[00:08:36.075]ConAgra will probably come back
[00:08:38.832]into the ready to eat business.
[00:08:41.397]Which all the other companies are taking advantage
[00:08:44.811]and making much more money than what ConAgra is doing.
[00:08:49.652]This is one of those hybrids.
[00:08:52.970]They have a really high yield potential, very nice.
[00:08:57.125]This is from this year, from the field.
[00:09:00.248]And because of the dent background,
[00:09:02.965]they have a much, much higher yield.
[00:09:06.753]The volume of expansion when you measure it,
[00:09:09.911]it's lower but the situation is that they're round,
[00:09:13.916]so like if you put four porcupines in a box
[00:09:17.294]and you have the quills open, you won't be able to fit 'em.
[00:09:20.490]But if they're completely folded, you can put 'em in.
[00:09:23.491]Same situation with this popcorn.
[00:09:26.932]When you measure it, it measures much less.
[00:09:30.240]So before they were not paying attention to that.
[00:09:32.736]But now flake shape is the number one seller.
[00:09:39.237]The dwarfing, as I was saying,
[00:09:42.616]that popcorn is almost like a weed,
[00:09:46.179]look at the yield trial.
[00:09:47.573]This is a picture from the combine,
[00:09:49.871]where everything's on the ground.
[00:09:52.913]This is dent corn on this side.
[00:09:54.748]So what we're doing is incorporating
[00:09:57.789]a brachytic gene with other traits like
[00:10:02.247]erect leaves above the ear,
[00:10:04.794]so we can increase the population density
[00:10:08.091]and obtain a higher yield.
[00:10:10.238]And I think they're telling me to stop.
[00:10:12.874]So thank you for your attention.
[00:10:15.340](audience applauds)

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