b'FROM DARWIN TO DRAFTThis years National Association for Plant Breeding meeting explored the intersection of brewing and breeding.Marc ZienkiewiczIMAGINE THIS: youre sipping on an American lager, savouring its crisp, clean taste. Little do you know, the journey of that beer started over 150 years ago in the fields of the University of Illinois.Its not just any corn used in the beer from Riggs Beer Company in Urbana, Ill.; its the product of one of the longest-running breeding experiments in history, a direct descendant of Darwins ideas on natural selection.Attendees of the National Association for Plant Breeding (NAPB) meeting heard the story during a day-long tour of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaigns corn breed-ing program led by Martin Bohn, associate professor of Maize Breeding and Genetics at the university who helped organize this years NAPB meeting.Shortly after Darwin published On the Origin of Species, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign embarked on a mission. They began experimenting with a white corn variety from a local farm, selectively breeding it for high and low oil and protein concentrations. Over time, they produced four distinct corn varieties, each with unique traits.Enter Steve Moose, director of the Corn Functional Genomics Lab and a professor of crop sciences at the university. Matt Riggs of Riggs Beer Company in Urbana, Ill, speaks to attendees of The corn used in our American lagers is a result of thisthe National Association for Plant Breeding.long-term breeding experiment, really guided by his expertise. The low-oil corn variety they developed has found a perfectThe brewerys connection to this special corn is more than home in our brewing process, solving a crucial problem for us,just academic. It turns out Moose taught Riggs during his explained Matt Riggs, who operates the brewpub along withcollege days. When Riggs reached out to him about the oil brother Darin. problem, Moose was intrigued. He had only a small amount of Oil is the enemy of beer. It compromises foam stability,the low oil corn seed but promised to cultivate it for them. This shelf life, and overall quality due to oxidative reactions, hecollaboration has been both fascinating and rewarding over the explains. past few years.Large brewers typically remove the germ from corn grits orNow, were on version 3.0 of this low-oil corn, tweak-use corn syrup to avoid these issues. However, a simple Googleing the breeding stock to eliminate undesirable traits while search led us to the Illinois breeding experiment and its low-oilmaintaining the low oil concentration. This allows us to use corn variety. the whole kernel in our beer, enhancing both flavour and shelf 16 SEEDWORLD.COM/CANADA NOVEMBER 2024'