IARN — Dr. Jerry Strissel, president and owner of JFS & Associates, stays “busy creating and staying above the edge of the next generation of white and yellow corn inbreds and hybrids for the seed industry.
Dr. Strissel works alongside breeders in Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, Turkey, and the United States. His cooperative research project pursues “sources of genetic diversity” to create new combinations for niche markets.
Dr. Strissel remains fascinated by his 116-day white corn hybrid, X654W. The dual purpose, single cross hybrid, offers many solutions for different sectors.
“It has not become commercialized, but I have people working on this. (It) is separating out the protein from the high-protein white corn,” Dr. Strissel says. “We did the proof of concept with rainbow trout and salmon, (where) we could replace 100-percent of the fish meal in fish farming. It eliminates a lot of contaminates that give fish a bad reputation. We did the proof of concept studies for the health of the salmon, and proved that you could replace 100-percent of the fish meal and not affect the health of the salmon and maintain the same feed gain.”
Others within the industry requested this high-protein, white corn hybrid be repurposed for other feed sources.
“We know from studies at North Carolina that when you feed this type of product to poultry, it pushes the meat production of the bird from the back to the front,” Dr. Strissel says. “The protein complex in this particular hybrid also affects the taste to a favorable position. And it’s highly digestible, 97.5-percent digestible.”
JFS & Associates ran multiple tests on this hybrid, to prove its enhanced digestibility and define its use, which ranges from animal and human consumption to papermaking.
Story courtesy of the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network.
Photo courtesy of JFS & Associates
