Iowa State researchers on corn germplasm will literally have a field day at tomorrow’s corn germplasm field day.

The field day, sponsored by ISU’s Germplasm Enhancement of Maize (GEM) project, will be held from 1-5 p.m. at the ISU Agronomy and Agricultural Engineering Research Center west of Ames on Highway 30.

The purpose of the day is to show GEM cooperators, such as public university and government corn scientists, private corn breeders and others interested in the progress in adapting and evaluating useful exotic germplasm, said Linda Pollak, ISU research geneticist.

Visitors to the corn germplasm field day can see crosses of commercial corn inbred lines with some of the corn germplasm which researchers believe will yield new and improved hybrids.

“Exotic” corn germplasm is genetic material from corn species from different parts of the world. Corn varieties, or accessions, from other parts of the world, contain genetic variation for traits important for modern corn production, such as productivity, stress resistance, disease or insect resistance or value added traits like good malleability, said Pollak.

“U.S. corn hybrids use less than 5 percent available corn germplasm, so it could not possibly contain all the best genes for the above traits,” she said. “Also, production practices, disease and insect pressures, etc., are always changing so it is important to keep up with new genes needed, and in many cases they can be obtained from “exotic” germplasm.”

Because U.S. corn hybrids use such a small amount of world corn germplasm it has an increased potential vulnerability.

“Vulnerability means that too many hybrids grown in farmers fields are too alike, thus could be hurt by a new disease, insect or stress,” Pollak said.

Such vulnerability may lead to an eventual cap in yields.

The GEM project holds that corn germplasm from other parts of the world could provide pest-resistant genes, increased crop yields, and quality traits that would meet new market demands.

Already, nearly 270 corn accession have been identified in an earlier project. These are now being enhanced and made available to commercial corn breeders and university researchers.

There will also be demonstrations and displays by ISU research cooperators in the GEM project, and a demonstration on how GEM germplasm is evaluated for grain quality traits.

ISU researchers who will present at the field day include Dr. Pam White, professor of food science and human nutrition, Dr. Larry Johnson, professor of food science and human nutrition, Dr. Gary Munkvold, assistant professor or plant pathology, Dr. Jon Tollefson, professor of entomology. David Topel, dean of the College of Agriculture will give the welcome from ISU.