DisplayTitle

Effect of Stress Cracks on Corn Wet-Milling Yields

¹Identity Preserved Grain laboratory director, Illinois Crop Improvement Association, 3105 Research Road, Champaign, IL 61822. Adjunct assistant professor, Agricultural Engineering Department, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL. ²Professor, Agricultural Engineering Department, University of Illinois, 1304 West Pennsylvania Ave, Urbana, IL 61801. ³Corresponding author. E-mail: seckhoff@uiuc.edu.

U.S. No. 2 yellow dent corn was randomly probe-sampled from rail cars being shipped to a wet-milling plant from a Corn Belt local elevator. The probe samples were blended together and kernels were sorted into four levels of stress cracks (0, 1, 2, or multiple). Each level of stress cracking was then laboratory wet-milled in triplicate. The only statistically observed differences were in total fiber and in protein content of the gluten meal fraction. The starch yield difference between zero stress cracked corn and multiple stress cracked corn was smaller (0.8%) than would be expected if stress cracking were an indicator of damage to the wet-milling characteristics of the corn.