Fielding questions….

Submitted by Charlene Wight on Tue, 07/20/2021 - 14:10

Field days are a big part of oat research, even if some of them have to be held virtually these days. Looking forward to the OAT2022 (11th IOC) meeting next year in Australia, there will be a field day, but please note that no additional seed can be sent for inclusion in the trials. This is because of Australia’s strict quarantine regulations.

If you’re in the Grand Prairie, AB, area on Thursday, July 22nd, you can attend an in-person field day with SARDA Ag Research.

The presentations for the Ottawa RDC, AAFC, virtual field day have now been posted, and the live session will be held on July 28th, from 10:00-noon EDT. Please contact me (charlene.wight@agr.gc.ca) for the Zoom information if you would like to join the call. You can also send questions or comments ahead of time.

Pausing a moment to consider other upcoming deadlines, there have been a number of new jobs posted recently, a number of which involve working with oats. If you are interested, please take a look at the listings on the GrainGenes website.

There will soon be more plant breeding students trained at the University of Florida! If you'd like a lesson about breeding for organic systems, you can listen to this podcast from the University of Manitoba.

In the last newsletter update, there were links to two articles that mentioned Steve Harrison and the breeding program at Louisiana State U.. Another article concerning the economic importance of LSU’s breeding programs can be found here.

Someone who recently started a new position is Atikur Rahman. He has been hired by Teagasc in Ireland to work on oat agronomy and stress physiology. Congratulations, and welcome, Atik! Also working on oat agronomy at Teagasc is Sara Tudor, who gives a brief description of her work in the video attached to this tweet.

Turning back to field days, here are some articles and videos about different research programs in the UK and North America:

The last update also included a research report concerning intercropping research in Canada. This work was recently highlighted in an article in the Western Producer. Intercropping is also being studied in Switzerland. The latest article to be added to the "Research Reports" section concerns the economic value of agricultural crop rotations in Germany.

This has been a dreadful year for oat farmers in many places, including the USA, where there has been a severe drought.

Disease doesn’t help either, and the latest issue (#4, 2021) of the USDA-ARS Cereal Rust Bulletin is now available. Twitter can be a useful place to discuss disease and ask for help with identifications, as seen in this example. Other published descriptions and reports such as this one, which was advertised on Twitter, are also extremely valuable.

Too much disease is bad, and the same can be said for too much nitrogen. When it comes to oaten hay, an important export product in Australia, too much nitrogen can affect hay quality (see articles here and here). Nitrate toxicity in animals can also occur, particularly if the plants are grown under conditions of stress.

Australia produces a lot of different oat products, and AEGIC is now seeking commercial partners to help develop even more. The Prairie Oat Growers Association is also looking at new products and markets for Canadian oats, and more information can be found in the latest edition of the “Oat Scoop” newsletter. One article describes new work being done by Lingyun Chen at the University of Alberta to develop a more nutritious oat latte, which is also described here.

Whatever your beverage of choice after a long day in the field, the lab, or the office, I hope you can relax and enjoy it. I would also like to say "Eid Mubarak" to everyone celebrating Eid al-Adha this week!