With the financial support of the Agricultural Research Foundation (ARF), we are advancing a dry farmed field corn breeding project involving the genetically diverse, Open Oak Party Mix culinary dent corn variety (Adaptive Seeds, Brownsville, OR). Additionally, we will feature a new, pilot collaboration with the Northern Organic Variety Improvement Collaborative (NOVIC), in which we are assessing a dozen corn varieties for dry farming performance and culinary quality for nixtamalization into hominy/posole and masa. We will go over the basics of our corn breeding process, including hand pollination and principles of recurrent selection - as well as discussion on agronomic and culinary qualities of diverse field corn varieties.
