Heart-friendly corn oil? New high-oleic corn varieties make it possible

Agricultural Research, August, 2003 by Luis Pons

Duvick, Pollak, and White have submitted a patent application (No. 09/ 285,368) for the Tripsacum-introgressed corn lines, and they currently seek commercial partners. "Seed companies and firms developing new corn breeding lines could use this technology, as could companies in the food or feed industries," says Pollak.

Duvick says some of the new lines yield oils containing 60 to 70 percent oleic acid, compared to the 20 to 30 percent rate found in commercially available corn oils. She adds that varieties have been developed that have oils with total saturated fatty acid composition as low as 6.5 percent---compared to the 13 percent found in corn oils currently available.

Pollak says future research on the subject will focus on two areas: examining the types of products that can use the high-oleic lines and crossing the new lines with existing corn varieties.

This research is part of Plant, Microbial, and Insect Genetic Research, Genomics, and Genetic Improvement, an ARS National Program (#301) described on the World Wide Web at www.nps.ars. usda.gov.

Linda M. Pollak is in the USDA-ARS Corn Insects and Crops Genetics Research Unit, and Susan A. Duvick is with the USDA-ARS North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station, Agronomy Building, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-0000; [Pollak] phone (515) 294-7831, fax (515) 294-9359, e-mail lmpollak@iastate.edu, [Duvick] phone (515) 294-9375, fax (515) 294-4880, e-mail sduvick@iastate.edu.