-: Thank you for the opportunity.
In the time it takes to pop two microwave bags,
I have to tell you what we're doing.
(audience laughs)
There's gonna be a lot of short bullet points.
Basically this is joint research agreement
between ConAgra and the University of Nebraska.
In 2012 this agreement was reached
and then we initiated research projects
and I mean, initial projects were approved
and initiated operations.
I do most of my work at the Mead Agronomy Farm.
These are some of the projects that we're working on.
The quality protein popcorn,
led by David Holding.
I'm not gonna talk about this.
The popcorn diversity study
that Aaron Lorenz initiated,
and now James Schnable is taking over.
The oleic acid effect in volume expansion,
I'm in charge of that one.
The Goss wilt genetic study.
Collaborating with Tom Hoegemeyer,
the production of a popcorn double haploid inducer.
We do some hybrid development.
Not as much as we used to do in Brookston with ConAgra,
but we're still doing that.
One of my responsibilities also is
provide ConAgra with foundation seed
so they can increase their hybrid seed production.
We're working on a dwarfing project.
And dent by pop.
In the dent by pop there have been a lot of dent lines
that lost their plant variety protection,
and so we're using the heterotic pattern of corn
to basically piggyback in that heterotic background
and try to improve the yield of popcorn.
Popcorn, one of the most important traits
is volume expansion and also the tenderness.
ConAgra for the past 60 years,
it's been the leader in volume expansion.
Most of the competitive companies
have not even been able to approach with their breeding.
And you can see the comparison of volume expansion
with the competitors.
And basically ConAgra handles two types of popcorn,
the proprietary Orville Redenbacher
and the Act II which is some of the Act II
varieties are sold commercially
for any producer to use under contract.
On the oleic acid study,
what we found is that after exhaustive
chemical analysis is that
the presence of certain oleic acids,
with those you can differentiate which varieties
have a larger volume expansion and which don't.
And basically these are oleic acids with long chains.
Basically is a eso-con-a-soig,
which is peanut oil, palmitics, stearic,
and the ratio of polysaturated to saturated.
And with those oleic acids,
I can have, for example,
this is dent corn, this is high volume expansion,
low volume expansion, medium, and mushroom types.
So with that information from the oleic acids
I can differentiate my high volume expansion hybrids
at a 90% certainty, which is very good.
So we're using this information to try
to select faster for volume expansion.
This is the double haploid inducer project.
Basically popcorn has evolved
separately from dent corn.
And although Roch always gets mad with me when I say it,
but popcorn is a weed compared to dent corn.
Because it has evolved separately
because it has a trait which is dent sterility.
In other words, you cannot cross,
if you use popcorn as a female
and dent corn as a male, you don't get any seed.
But if you use dent corn as a female
and popcorn as a male, the cross is successful.
But to use this double haploid inducer,
the double haploid is a special plant
where you can in one generation obtain pure lines
instead of selfing for eight or 10 generations.
So we are transferring the genetic incompatibility
from popcorn into this dent corn double haploid inducer.
Right now we're in back rows four,
I'm sorry, we just finished back rows three
and back rows four is going to Puerto Rico
for winter nursery.
We have to always say,
close attention to the markets
in terms of what popcorn is doing.
And lately there has been a shift
with the ready to eat market.
Before, microwave popcorn had
the majority of the sales.
And it has shift in the recent years.
Where now the ready to eat
has a much larger market than microwave popcorn.
There's some problems with this.
It is estimated that by next year probably
the ready to eat will reach 4.8 billion dollars of sales.
I'm sorry, in conjunction,
but 75% of the sales will be ready to eat.
You've seen these bags everywhere in the supermarkets.
One of the problems with the ready to eat is
the shape of the flake because
butterfly shapes are used and they have open wings.
Those wings tend to break,
and you get up to 30% of broken pieces.
Like this, we sieved this bag
and all of those are broken pieces.
The major types of flakes that you find in popcorn,
these are the regular butterfly flakes.
They're called bilateral and multilateral.
And you also have the mushroom.
The problem with the mushroom
is that it's partially popped
and it has a polymerized external surface
that is very, very chewy.
What we're looking for is for this,
what is called unilateral types of flakes.
And we have part of the results from our study,
if you see here dent corn is close to mushroom
in our study for oils on expansion,
so the idea was to take some of the popcorn lines
that have a lot of dent corn in their background
and look for rounder types of flakes.
And we found it.
There are a couple of hybrids that we developed
that have this unilateral type of flake
where it's not gonna break like
in the case of the regular butterfly,
and there are parts that are completely popped
compared to the mushroom.
The advantage is that when the flavor
is added they put 'em in what they're called tumblers.
It's like a cement mixer.
So they throw the flavor and they tumble them
and you get all of those wings, they break apart.
So now with this new types of hybrids,
ConAgra will probably come back
into the ready to eat business.
Which all the other companies are taking advantage
and making much more money than what ConAgra is doing.
This is one of those hybrids.
They have a really high yield potential, very nice.
This is from this year, from the field.
And because of the dent background,
they have a much, much higher yield.
The volume of expansion when you measure it,
it's lower but the situation is that they're round,
so like if you put four porcupines in a box
and you have the quills open, you won't be able to fit 'em.
But if they're completely folded, you can put 'em in.
Same situation with this popcorn.
When you measure it, it measures much less.
So before they were not paying attention to that.
But now flake shape is the number one seller.
The dwarfing, as I was saying,
that popcorn is almost like a weed,
look at the yield trial.
This is a picture from the combine,
where everything's on the ground.
This is dent corn on this side.
So what we're doing is incorporating
a brachytic gene with other traits like
erect leaves above the ear,
so we can increase the population density
and obtain a higher yield.
And I think they're telling me to stop.
So thank you for your attention.
(audience applauds)