Adding Value to the US Northern Corn Belt Hybrids with Temperate and Tropical Exotic Germplasms.

Added value of higher grain protein, grain oil, extractable and fermentable starch increases value of maize for food, fuel and industrial use as well as premium to farmers. Exotic germplasms are the unique source of genetic diversity for quality and agronomic traits. In the history, the major event in maize germplasm evaluation was Latin American Maize Project (LAMP). It evaluated around 12,000 maize accessions comprising 74% of the known races of maize found in Latin America and US germplasm banks. Early Germplasm Enhancement of Maize (EarlyGEM) project was started in 1999 by North Dakota State University (NDSU) to incorporate LAMP identified germplasms to northern US. The project had started with 152 GEM S3 lines to incorporate into northern US. It utilized backcross breeding as the method with NDSU released line ND2000 as recurrent parent and observed GEM lines as donor parents. A MS research study was conducted to understand the genetic variation present among the diverse BC1:S1 lines and their competitive potential as source of new and unique hybrids with value added traits. In 2008, we studied four hundred BC1:S1 lines representing six EarlyGEM breeding populations derived from DKB844:S1601-507-1-B-B,  CUBA117:S1520-388-1-B, FS8B(T): N1802-35-1-B-B, CHO5015:N12-123-1-B-B,  SCR01:N1310-265-1-B-B, and BR52051:N04-70-1-B and BC check populations of B73, Mo17, and Iowa Stiff Stalk Synthetic (BSSS).These were tested with two industry testers LH176 and TR3026 x TR2040.  Data showed better grain yield (7.92 Mgh^-1 vs. 6.44Mgh^-1), grain oil (5.60% vs. 4.78%), grain protein (10.20% vs. 8.82%), and extractable starch (63.45% vs. 60.53%) in similar level of moisture at harvest in hybrid combination with testers as compared to checks. We have replicated this experiment in 2010. The results have shown the new way of breeding for northern Corn Belt hybrids with increased value added traits and high genetic diversity.