Developing Stronger, Healthier Corn

(music)

(Three house-like buildings built side-by-side, connected. The outer wall of the far left building is corrugated metal. The front of the buildings are made up of windows. There are two large, exhaust fans on the left side of the far left building above three box-like structures. Three large, exhaust fans are also attached to the corrugated metal side of the far left building. There is a door in the left, front corner of the far right building. Snow is on the ground in front of the buildings.)

[Abby Brown] This is my friend Magan. And Magan, you are a --

[Dr Magan Lewis] Scientist!

(Abby and Megan are standing in front of tall green plants. Abby is wearing a pink shirt under a jean jacket. Magan is wearing a blue, long-sleeved, fleece pull-over with a three-quarter zipper in front. Both Abby and Magan are wearing safety goggles and masks.)

[Abby] She's a scientist! And today we are visiting a greenhouse.So what happens in this greenhouse?

(Rows of tall, green plants in tracks, forresent lights attached to the ceiling.)

[Magan] This is where we can grow plants all year round, even when it's snowy and cold outside in Iowa.

[Abby] And it is today, snowy and cold outside in Iowa. But in here it's nice in warm, it even feels a little bit humid. There are really bright lights. So what other factors are you taking into consideration inside this space?

[Magan] Yeah, it's really cool. We get to provide the plants a warm place to be. We have the light that is on a timer. We also provide water so they can grow strong and mighty.

(Plant stem and root in an off-white bucket. A second bucket and plant is also seen.. Black drip-hose with water dripping running across the rim of both buckets.)

[Abby] Which is everything a plant needs, except inside.

[Magan] Absolutely, very similar to Iowa summertime except we have to recreate it in the greenhouse.

[Abby] The plants would never know the difference.

[Magan] Do you know what plant we have behind us?

(music)

[Abby] It's got to be corn, right?

[Magan] We're in Iowa so of course it's corn.

[Abby] What's special about this corn?

(Green, corn stalks with corn ears covered by light brown paper bags. The bags have yellow, square notes attached. On the notes appears to be numbers and letters.)

[Magan] Do you know what corn is used for?

[Abby] Lots of things in Iowa.

[Magan] Absolutely. Food, ethanol, etcetera. So we at Corteva have the opportunity to develop stronger, healthier corn.

[Abby] How do you do that?

[Magan] It's pretty fun. It's something that I enjoy doing and it's why I love science.

[Abby] And you have to know some pretty specific things about plants, what they look like and what they are made up of, right?

[Magan] Yep, so what color is that plant, Abby?

[Abby] Green.

[Magan] So you just told me the phenotype.

(text on screen. Phenotype)

[Abby] A phenotype is what a plant looks like.

[Magan] Absolutely. So pheno- is what you see.

[Abby] They're also really tall. Phenotype too?

[Magan] Phenotype too.

[Abby] Phenotype is what I see. What about genotype? That's a lot different, right?

(text on screen Genotype)

[Magan] Yep, so genotype determines the phenotype. So when I talk to my kids I always say, pheno- is what I see and genotype is what's inside me. So say it with me, ready?

[Abby] Okay, I'm ready.

[Abby and Megan together] Phenotype is what I see and genotype is what's inside of me.

(Veins inside a corn leaf.)

(music)

[Abby] So tell me more about genotype.

[Magan] Absolutely. Let's break down the word genes. Do you like cooking?

[Abby] Of course, I love cooking. But I need a recipe.

[Magan] I do too but my favorite is chocolate chip cookies.

[Abby] Delicious!

[Magan] So how do we make chocolate chip cookies?

[Abby] Whatever the instructions tell me to do.

[Magan] Absolutely. You have to break some eggs --

[Abby] Stir it up.

[Magan] Stir it up, add some sugar and cook them. So that is what genes do, in a nutshell.

[Abby] In our bodies though, or in a plant?

[Magan] In a plant. So what it does is the genes give us the specific instructions that are going to tell us how the plant is going to grow and what that plant is going to do. Just like if you follow the instructions for cooking, you follow that recipe, you know what you're going to get. So we're following a recipe here in hopes of what we're going to get.

(Green corn stalk with green leaves.)

[Magan] To find a plant's genotype we are going to leaf punch.

(Using a hole-punch like tool, a person slides a corn leaf between two metal plates and squeezes a trigger like mechanism. A small hole-shaped section from the leaf falls out. )

(music)

[Magan] Leaf punching is an exciting process. We get to use this cool dinosaur looking tool and come over to the plant and we get to punch a hole in it. And the cool part about that is we take that leaf punch and we put it inside a tube.

(Leaf-punch tool with a small, clear tube attached. Green, circular shapes fall into the small glass tube.)

[Magan] But to know that we are matching the right plant with the right tube we use barcode scanning.

(Small, glass tube with green, circular shapes inside.)

[Magan] So it's a super slick process.

(Lab technician typing on a laptop.)

[Magan] After all of those plant punches are collected into the right tubes and double checked with the barcode scanner, we get to roll the samples down to the lab and find out what the genotype of that plant is.

(rows of corn)

(music)

[Abby] So when you get the leaf punch and you find out the genotype and the phenotype it sounds like you can kind of predict exactly what the plant might do and look like and how to grow it before it even grows.

[Magan] Absolutely. That is the joys and that is the fun part about science and technology.

[Abby] Wait a minute. How many times do you have to try before you get it right?

[Magan] Oh, you don't even want to know.

[Abby] Like a lot, right?

[Magan] A lot.

[Abby] More than 10?

[Magan] More than 10.

[Abby] More than 20?

[Magan] More than 20.

(music)

(Lab technician using the leaf punching tool to extract sections of the green corn leaves.)

[Abby] Magan, thank you so much to you and all of the scientists that it takes to feed the world.

[Magan] And thank you to the farmer.

[Abby] Girls and boys, can you imagine what science will be like in another generation? Perhaps you will be the next scientist that does this work!

(music)

Ear of corn with the husk pulled down to reveal the cob with corn silk attached. A brown paper bag is seen behind the ear.

[Announcer] Funding for FIND Iowa has been provided by the following supporters.

(text on screen Find Iowa, Pella, Gilchrist Foundation)

(text on screen Iowa PBS Education)