This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will generate novel parental lines of hybrid industrial corn. These F1 hybrids, grown by U.S. farmers, will produce F2 seeds with much higher levels of starch and no embryos. This innovation will allow for an easier and more cost effective processing of corn at the plant for all industrial applications of starch. We have dual research objectives: i) the genetic engineering of germless kernels, and ii) the timely expression of the germless trait to the F2 seeds. Molecular constructs have been prepared and will be transformed into corn during Phase I. This technology will facilitate starch extraction leading to a cleaner stream of starch and capturing value for farmers, processors and end-users.
The broader impact/commercial potential of this project includes the following societal and economical benefits: i) the development of new and cost-effective industrial methods to extract starch from corn and other crops; ii) the partitioning of the U.S. crop into industrial (starch for biomaterials, ethanol and other applications) and conventional (feed and food) acreage for more efficient land use; iii) reducing the need for petroleum by replacing products historically derived from oil with eco-friendly bioplastics, biofilms and other biomaterials derived from starch; and iv) an opportunity to lower fertilizer inputs to the corn crop when grown to supply the industrial production of starch. Phase I is designed to achieve all these achievements by merging and further developing technologies from plant molecular biology, seed physiology, cereal processing, fermentation biology and process engineering.
