NEWS: Hybrid Corn to Resist Biotech pollen contamination - Star Trib

July 15, 2005

Star Tribune (Sioux City, South Dakota) July 10, 2005

Hybrid corn to benefit farmers

JOY POWELL

MINNEAPOLIS Since most Minnesota corn farmers have turned to biotech

seeds, others who want to grow non-biotech corn sometimes encounter a

costly problem: The biotech pollen can drift from neighboring fields.

The resulting contamination has been a bane for farmers who want to

grow non-biotech corn for export as well as for niche domestic markets

that would pay a premium, from organic food companies to baby-food makers.

Now, a small Nebraska firm called Hoegemeyer Hybrids has patented a

breed of non-biotech corn that the company says is resistant to such

contamination.

Thats of interest to many Minnesota farmers, where 63 percent of the $2

billion corn crop last year was of biotech varieties the

second-highest use of biotech corn seeds nationwide, behind South Dakota.

Raised through conventional breeding, the new hybrid corn, called

PuraMaize, rejects pollen from all other strains of corn except its own

meaning that any biotech pollen that happened to drift by could not

contaminate it, said inventor Tom Hoegemeyer, a nationally known corn

breeder.

His company intends to complete licensing arrangements and have the

commercial hybrid seed available for the 2006 growing season in

Minnesota and other parts of the Corn Belt. Theyll sell it through

their own company to farmers, as well as through major seed companies.

Thats pretty cool, if it works, said Mark Hamerlinck, a spokesman for

the Minnesota Corn Growers Association.

Hoegemeyer said his completely natural system will allow biotech and

non-biotech cornfields to grow side by side while also ensuring that

corn grown for specialty starches, corn flakes, tacos and other

corn-based products stays free of contamination by genetically modified

organisms, or GMOs.

It looks like something promising for the future, especially as more

biotech varieties hit the market, said Craig Williams of Stauffer Seeds,

which is based in Carroll, Iowa, and sells seed in southwest and

south-central Minnesota.

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