20 Ontario food grade corn/evaluation of quality for dry milling and snack food applications.

J. A. FREGEAU REID, J. Gale, and L. N. Pietrzak. Eastern Cereal and Oilseed Research Centre (ECORC), Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada, CEF, Ottawa, ON K1A 0C6, Canada.

The Ontario Corn Producers Association has fostered a new research initiative to develop high quality food grade corn to address the requirements of dry milling and mexican snack food applications. The project covers agronomic adaptation, disease improvement, grain quality and storage technology. ECORC is responsible for grain quality evaluation of potential food corn hybrids from public or commercial programs, grown in several Ontario environments. Our first objective was to measure the performance of these hybrids against commercial food grade corn either Ontario grown or imported from USA. Most of the quality tests followed established procedures of AACC or ones developped at Texas A&M Grain Quality Laboratory. Whole kernel traits such as TW, KW, size and shape, density as % floaters and with a gas pycnometer, were measured. Kernel hardness was evaluated with 1) Stenvert hardness test, 2) TADD and 3) ratio hard/soft endosperm by image analysis. Alkaline cooking performance was obtained with 1) lab scale cooking test for dry matter losses and water uptake and 2) pericarp removal test. Presented results will show variability in current Ontario hybrids and correlations between various tests.