2006 Annual Report 4d.Progress report. This report serves to document research conducted under a Specific Cooperative Agreement between ARS and Iowa State University. Additional details of research can be found in the report for the parent CRIS 3625-21000-046-00D Breeding High Quality Corn for Sustainable, Low-Input farming Systems. This research integrates plant breeding, corn genetics, and seed science. Plant breeders developing new inbred lines with improved grain nutritional value are frequently not aware how their selections impact seed quality. Selecting for increased oil and protein content in the grain sometimes comes at the expense of seed quality. Unanticipated seed quality problems may occur when seeds are multiplied in an alternative location or when lines are crossed to make hybrids. Plant breeders usually select corn in fields cultivated in a conventional manner (i.e., using chemical pesticides and fertilizers to maximize production). Seed quality and nutritional value of the grain could be different when corn is produced in these high-input systems, rather than in low-input, organic and sustainable crop production systems. The results of this research indicate that seed quality is affected by the production system. Seed produced in organic systems has lower germination and seed vigor. This seed quality difference could be attributed to later spring planting in organic and sustainable production systems used to avoid cold soil and pests, shorter growing season, and greater threat of freezing injury incidence in the fall. Although seed quality of the lines varies, corn lines selected for high nutritional value in a conventional production system still have the same high nutritional value when produced in an organic or sustainable production system. This is an important finding because it means that breeding selections made in a conventional system can be transferred directly to an organic production system. Other aspects of this on-going research include predicting seed quality of the hybrid from the seed quality of the inbred lines used in the cross; and evaluating the inbred quality index for predicting inbred and hybrid seed quality.