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• Over 11,000 yield plots were conducted at or coordinated from Ames. 
• Thirty-two breeding crosses were selected for advancement by Ames. 
• Over 1500 topcrossed lines will be available for Corn Belt yield testing in 1999. 
• 200 topcrossed S₂ lines from GEM breeding crosses beat the average of commercial check hybrids in trials analyzed to date at Ames. 
• GEM's value-added research capacity expanded with the addition of a Waters High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) system with an UV-VIS detector to measure amino acid and anti-oxidant content of GEM lines. 
• In Raleigh, about 30 of the approximately 200 families tested in second-year trials are competitive with commercial check hybrids. 
• GEM’s capacity for field research in Ames expanded with the acquisition of a Gleaner K combine with three-row corn head (thanks to Les Lewis for funds to install air conditioning, Pioneer Hybrids International for the combine and hauling to Indiana, and Dekalb Genetics for hauling from Indiana,) converted to a plot combine. 
• A field day was held on September 23 at the CAD Uthe farm in Ames. 
• GEM gained international status with Embrapa, Brazil becoming a cooperator. This brings the total to 23 private, 43 public, and one international cooperators. 
• A total of 12 public cooperator projects were partially supported financially by GEM. 
• Identified three lines with very high % retrogradation (%R), CUBA164: S1511b-38-1-3, CUBA164:S1511b-34-1-3 and CUBA164:S2008a-31-1-3 with 83.8%, 86.7%, and 83.9% respectively. High %R starch may be a “resistive starch” meaning that it readily retrogrades or recrystallizes. Resistive starch potential uses include a new source of dietary fiber or as a dry lubricant or dusting powder in industrial applications e.g. as a lubricant between the multiple layers of plastic as is used in plastic lamination (hot dog packages) and in plastic gloves. 
• Identified a line, AR16035: S02-500-24, with low protein, 5.1%, a line, SCROGP:N1310-213-22, with high protein, 15.4%, and a line, AR16035:S02-214-6, with high starch content, 73.6%. 

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Twenty-seven cooperators attended the meeting. Annual reports were presented by Linda Pollak (Coordinator), Major Goodman (North Carolina Cooperator), Susan Duvick (Lab Manager), and Tim Johnson (Data Manager) who discussed progress on the 1997 Yield Testing Data Summary. Preliminary reports were given by the public cooperators: Craig Abel, Jim Coors, Neil Widstrom, Richard Pratt, and Gary Munkvold. Dave Harper discussed restructuring of breeding protocol. Dana Eaton was elected to replace Randy Holley on the TSG, and Ron Walejko was elected to replace Kevin Montgomery. A mid-meeting coffee break gave cooperators an opportunity to network.
 

December 9, 1997, Chicago, IL:

• Ron Phillips, an invited guest, discussed the Plant Genome Research Program, which recently received funding of $40million through National Science Foundation. In particular, he discussed GEM’s relationship to this genome work as a shared structural resource dealing with genetic resources. 
• Discussion was conducted about formation of new breeding crosses with new exotic materials. 
• Funding decisions for public cooperators were approved. 
• Randy Holley suggested some effort be made to developing lines for the genome work without regard to yield potential. 
• A suggestion to make breeding crosses with zone 5 or 6 inbreds to target lines for zone 6 was made. 

June 2, 1998, Ames, IA:

• Ron Cantrell, Head of ISU’s Agronomy Department, and David Topel, Dean of ISU’s College of Agriculture, were invited guests. Dr. Cantrell suggested being risky, less afraid of failure. Dean Topel suggested that public cooperators seek matching grants, and that GEM involve commodity groups and others able to lobby at high levels. 
• Protocol for retesting lines for potential release (use two testers), and for collection of data on these lines was discussed. Agronomic data should be collected on S₂’s, while disease/insect testing should be on S₃’s. Grain quality traits will be collected on second year topcrosses to correlate back to the S₃ line in the test. Use 3 or more locations, 4-5 ears at each location selfed and bulked for analysis. 
• GEM lines release nomenclature will be GEMN#### and GEMS### for nSS and SS lines, respectively. Release notices will include primary developer, institution, in kind support cooperators involved not mentioned but their companies will be mentioned, TSG and USDA indicated as cooperators with primary developer. 
• Seed orders for S₂ lines will not be filled until increased to S₃’s. 
• Common checks will be reviewed yearly by Pioneer and Holden’s principal contacts, possible adding grain quality, Bt, and other types of checks. 
• Linda will cooperate with Ed Coe on a genomics grant proposal to NSF using GEM lines. Companies were not concerned with sequencing of breeding crosses or lines using SSR’s. 

• A new department head will be hired at ISU, after which USDA will hold an external review of GEM. The review was requested by Les Lewis (Research Leader) and Rick Dunkle (Area Director). Names of potential external reviewers were discussed. Hiep Pham, David Harper, and Marty Carson will help Linda organize for the review.   
• Cerestar, a starch processing company, is a new private cooperator. They will do amylose content, starch granule particle size distribution analysis, and wet milling characteristics as their in kind support (as compared to nursery rows, yield plots, and disease observation plots for seed companies), and expertise and commercialization for value-added traits as their proprietary contribution (as compared to germplasm for seed companies). 
• Marty Carson discussed problems in the southern area such as lack of cooperators, labor resource limitations, early planting dates compared to the central area, and late date for availability of data. 
• Discussion was made of public cooperator visits made by TSG members, and the questioning of ARS concerning use of GEM funds because of poor data submission track record of some public cooperators. In the future, need data (or response of some kind) by deadline outlined in signed specific cooperative agreements or new funding will not be extended. 
• Wilfredo will leave as member and chair as Pioneer will no longer fund his travel (contract ending at the end of the year) unless other funding is secured. TSG will investigate continuing funding for his chair position for 3 years. Jim Coors and Don White due to rotate off, Dirk Benson and Dave Harper would remain for continuity of lobbying. Giving public members $1000 per year for travel honorarium to meetings not held in conjunction with other meetings was proposed; require 2 meetings/year minimum for public cooperator members. 
• The future of GEM in relation to database issues was discussed. GEM needs to establish a real, accessible database. Both GRIN and Maize genome database wants links with our data. The TSG will lobby ARS for funding, and Hiep Pham will help Linda with plans/ideas. 
• Ideas were put forth to sell our materials. A subcommittee of Data Eaton (chair), Dirk Benson, Kevin Montgomery, and Doug Tiffany was formed to promote, package, and sell our germplasm most effectively. 
• The Genome proposal involving GEM was thrown out by NSF. 

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• GEM description in ISU’s College of Agriculture 1997 Annual Report.

• Article in The Messenger/Farm News, Fort Dodge IA, January 30.

• Article in February’s Seed & Crops Digest.

• Article in Integrated Crop Management-Crops Research Edition, Winter 1998.

• Article in Iowa Farmer Today, February 14.

• Presentation of Results of 1996 GEM Laboratory Analyses at NCR-167 by Susan Duvick, Ames IA, February 16.

• Invited presentation “A program for developing and characterizing exotic corn crosses with value-added starch and oil” by Pam White at 10^th Annual Food Focus, Minneapolis

• Poster display at ISU Agronomy Day on September 10.

• Invited presentation “Productivity and quality in cereal improvement and production” at Brazilian Congress of Corn and Sorghum, Recife, Brazil, September 9.

• Invited presentation “Public-private sector collaboration in maize germplasm enhancement in the USA” at Asian Seed ’98, Manila Philippines, September 24.

• Article “Taking corn into future” in Sunday’s Des Moines Register, October 4.

• Poster “Corn elite germplasm enhancement:results of the use of South American corn resources” by A.T. Kraja, J.W. Dudley, D.G. White, at ASA Meetings October 22, Baltimore.

• Poster “Yield potential of GEM project breeding crosses” by L. Pollak, W. Salhuana, and T. Johnson, at ASA Meetings, October 22, Baltimore.

• Poster “Yield potential of GEM project breeding lines” by T. Johnson, L. Pollak, and W. Salhuana, at ASA Meetings, October 22, Baltimore.

• December News Release by ISU “Using the exotic to expand value-added agriculture at home”

• Publication of “Genetic variability in exotic x adapted maize (Zea mays L.) germplasm for resistance to maize weevil” by R. Li, M.S. Kang, O.J. Moreno, L.M. Pollak in Plant Genetics Resources Newsletter 114:22-25.

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Ames, IA - Breeding Program

 

98 Iowa Nursery: 64 lines increased for possible release, 30 lines for further evaluation, 26 backcross regenerations, 32 value added lines for intensive starch evaluations, 1326 rows for developing value-added lines, and 4087 rows for making S3’s. 

98 Iowa Isolations:  Production of Mo17, B73 and (Mo17 x B73) for lab checks. 

98 Puerto Rico Nursery: 389 rows for developing GEM lines for value-added traits. 

98 Puerto Rico Isolation: 536 rows of SS females to topcross to nSS tester. 

Raleigh, NC - Breeding Program

The project consists of four types of activities:

• Generation of 50%-tropical, 50% temperate families in the nursery, starting with the various breeding crosses. 
• Production of topcross seed for yield trial experiments. 
• Running yield trials, collecting and analyzing the yield trial data. 
• Arranging cooperative tests with other public and private breeding organizations and providing the counted seed to these organizations. 
• Analyzing the combined data sets from the yield trials run by us and other cooperators. 
• Selecting breeding crosses and families to include in the next cycle of testing. 

We utilized over 700 plots to make topcross seed, about half of which was made by hand pollinations and about half of which was done in isolated, detasselled fields. An additional set of 700 was done for us by hand pollination by Novartis, utilizing their Puerto Rico facilities.

We planted GEM yield trials at four locations in North Carolina, one of which (Sandhills, with about 3,000 plots), was lost to extreme heat and drought stress. A few trials (almost 300 plots) were lost to a hurricane at Lewiston, N.C. Basically, good data were acquired for all second year trials (about 800 plots) and data was lost for first year trials.

We chose to place emphasis on increasing, testing, and generating second-tester topcrosses of the more elite materials rather than generating more families or topcrosses of untested materials (we already have a large backlog of both topcrosses and of untested families). Several sources appear to be the most promising of the 16 that have had two years of trials. The best are DK888 S11, PE1 N16, and DK380 S11.

About 7,800 GEM yield trial plots were planted by 12 cooperators in 7 states, about 1/3 of which were second year trials. To date, almost 1,800 of these were lost due to either drought or flooding (80% of these were first-year trials). Reports have been received from 8 of the cooperators thus far; three additional ones have said that their data will be available shortly.

Final data for 1997 were not complete until mid-January, 1998.They were combined with data received earlier and summarized immediately. Approximately 200 of 750 GEM entries were selected for second-year yield trials. These entries performed at the level of the median of the check entries, a surprisingly favorable result for 50%-tropical families, about 1/3 of which represented germplasm-accession sources.

We have slightly more than ½ of the data for 1998 in from cooperators, but have enough in to summarize the second year trials. It appears thus far that about 30 of the approximately 200 families tested in second-year trials are competitive with commercial check hybrids. Disease data on 50% breeding crosses is still being analyzed. Big White ss03 continues to looking promising for both Fusarium and Aspergillus ear rot resistance.F1S2s from this cross were advanced to F1S3s this summer for further selection and evaluation.

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Private In-kind Nursery Support - Winter 1998-99

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Breeding Crosses Advanced - Summer 1998 and Winter 1998-1999

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In all, there were 22 experiments ranging from six to eight replications, with a total of 132.  

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