Something is popping up at Iowa State.

Ken Ziegler, a researcher with the ISU agronomy department’s Corn Yield Test Program since 1977, has been studying and improving popcorn for years. He’s now breeding the American movie favorite.

Ziegler proposed a popcorn breeding project to the Popcorn Institute in 1981. The project was approved and funded for several years.

“The project is governed by the fact that corn has one corn generation a year,” he said. Each year the gains are measured in comparison with older materials.

“The focus is continual improvement of the crop. We select the best each year then breed again and look at the gains a year later,” Ziegler said.

Because popcorn breeding is such a long-term endeavor, only three people at public institutions are involved, but none of the projects are full-time.

“I do very basic breeding work,” Ziegler said.

Ziegler develops the source material for parental lines that are used to produce hybrids, what farmers will eventually grow.

Ziegler has released eight improved breeding materials, but it will take eight to 10 years for the results to show up in the market, he said.

Ziegler said his work will help improve the quality of the popcorn. Harvesting, processing and cleaning also affect popcorn quality.

Popping expansion, the volume of unpopped kernels, is the main measure of popcorn quality, he said.

He also measures the hull dispersion, or how the hull breaks up when it explodes and pops. “We want it to break into small pieces so it doesn’t get caught in teeth,” Ziegler said.

Improvements are also being made in standability of the plants, their ability to remain erect until the crop is harvested.

Zeigler’s program is much smaller than it was a few years ago when the Popcorn Institute funded the project, but he plans to continue breeding popcorn as long as private agencies continue to fund the program.

The Popcorn Institute estimates that Americans consume about 17.3 billion quarts of popcorn annually.