We tend to consider oats as being mainly for food or feed purposes, but they’re good for other things as well – like ingredients for cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. You can hear more about that at our next “Speaking of Oats…” (SOO) webinar, which will be held on Tuesday, April 26th, at 11:00 am EDT. Cark Maunsell, from Oat Cosmetics in the UK, will be our speaker, and you can register here.

Our SOO webinar for June will be held on Tuesday, the 14th, also at 11:00 am EDT. Ulla Holopainen-Mantila and Pekka Lehtinen will talk to us about the Finnish OatHow project and how oats can be used as an alternative protein source. Registration for that webinar will open after the April session. We’ll take a break for the summer, and then use the early September SOO session to discuss the Oat Newsletter and other forms of communication within the oat community.

A new way of communicating was recently set up in the form of a private group on the WeChat app. If you would like to join this group, please send me (Charlene Wight) a request at oatnewsletter@gmail.com to receive the code. This group was set up to make communicating easier for our Chinese colleagues, but anyone is welcome to join.

I mentioned back in March that Jim Bradeen has left Oat Global and the SOO webinar team. He has now started his new position as the Associate VP for Strategy at the brand-new Spur campus of Colorado State University in Denver. Congratulations, Jim – this sounds like a very interesting challenge and they are lucky to have you!

I also mentioned that Pablo Olivera Firpa is the new director of Oat Global and head of the SOO team. You can read more about this transition on the Oat Global website. I would like to welcome Pablo to our community once again and congratulate him for receiving the 2022 Excellence in International Service Award from the American Phytopathological Society (APS)!

If you, or someone you know, is looking for a new job, there are a number of openings right now:

• DPIRD, in Northam, WA, Australia, is looking for a Research Scientist to be part of a WA State Government investment in milling oats through the “Processed Oat Industry Growth Partnership”. The deadline for applications is April 14th.
• Teagasc, in Co. Carlow, Ireland, is seeking to recruit a Post-doctoral Fellow with a proven track record in plant physiology and plant molecular biology to work with oats. The deadline for applications is April 14th.
• The Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland is looking for a new Research Fellow to work on a project called "GenoForage: Genomic breeding of forages". More details are here. The deadline for applications is April 14th.
• Four positions are available for Strategic Research Fellows or Senior Research Fellows at IBERS in Aberystwyth, Wales, in the areas of Plant Breeding, Crop Biodiversity, Grains for Health, and Sustainable Agricultural Systems. It is intended that these will become longer term posts. The deadline for applications is April 21st.
• The USDA in Beltsville, MD, is looking for a National Program Leader - Crop Production and Protection. The deadline for applications is April 25th.
• The USDA-ARS Cereal Disease Laboratory, at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, is seeking a Postdoctoral Research Associate - Research Molecular Biologist/Geneticist. The applicant should have a background in genomics, statistics, genome-wide association studies, and gene cloning to conduct critical research in diploid oat. The deadline for applications is May 28th.
• Melania Figueroa at CSIRO in Australia will also have a competition for a Postdoctoral Fellow opening soon.

Someone else with a new job is Jack King. He is the new Barley and Oat Quality Program Manager at AEGIC in Australia.

AEGIC is one of the groups helping organize the 11th international Oat Conference (IOC) in Perth this October, along with GIWA and DPIRD. Ash Wiese welcomes everyone to join them at the conference in this new video, and Allan Rattey tells us a bit about the demonstration plots in this tweet. Don’t forget that abstracts for talks and posters are due May 15th!

Those of you who attended the 9th IOC in Beijing, China, will remember being taught how to prepare traditional oat noodles, in a manner simliar to this. If you have some skill in the art of making traditional porridge, then you may be pleased to know that the 29th annual World Porridge Championships will go back to being held in person in Carrbridge, Scotland, on October 8th, just before the IOC meeting. Entries are now open!

Here are some more dates of interest:

• Oats are the theme for the April edition of Finland’s Agricultural and Household Women's Food Advice newsletter (article in Finnish).
• The United Nations General Assembly has declared May 12th to be the International Day of Plant Health from this year forward.
• May 16 is International Celiac Disease Awareness Day and landmarks in many cities will be lit up blue for the occasion. Pure oats (emphasis on “pure”) are one of the few grains that most people with celiac disease can consume safely. Here are some news items concerning gluten-free oats:
  • Demand for gluten-free oats is growing all the time in Finland and around the world (article in Finnish).
  • Purity protocol oats listing: ALL suppliers and manufacturers have updated or reconfirmed the information in their respective listings.
  • In light of supply chain issues, Quaker has reconfirmed their standards for gluten-free oats.
  • There aren't many, but if you're interested in truly gluten-free oat milks, these are the ones to try (in the USA).

Here’s a little more about what’s happening in the food oats industry:

• Strained oat supply pushes Oatly to raise prices, expand sourcing
• Time for Scottish oats to be centre stage
• Paulig to sell Gold&Green brand, intellectual property, and R&D function to Valio
• Oat exports to Mexico remain strong
• Emerging markets, changing diets lift call for oats
• Opportunities and risks for the Australian oats industry
• What if I didn’t sow at all? (Article in Finnish)

And here’s some research and production-related news:

• Harvesting knowledge can transform world agriculture, study finds
• Sowing heritage oats for Healthy Oats Spring Trials 2022 at Teagasc, Oak Park, Co. Carlow
• LiveOat organic spring oat trials are sown
• How best to respond to costly fertiliser nitrogen for use in 2022
• AHDB’s nitrogen calculator now reflects the new data for oats. In the calculator, select ‘oats’ as the 'crop type'.
• New look for plant breeding society (British Society of Plant Breeders)
• Saaten Union UK has a new website.
• Oats to oatmeal: A look at breeding and producing oats – featuring Weikai Yan
• Improved stress tolerance: Achieving oat kernel fill – featuring Art McElroy
• Strategies for better standability – featuring Josh Nasielski
• ECRF: Oat varieties that hold it together when the growing gets tough! (video)
• PFI: Small grains equipment essentials
• NDSU: Intercropping for grain production in the Northern Great Plains
• Spring oats offer forage and options

There are other newsletters for you to peruse as well – POGA’s “Oat Scoop” newsletter for March is now available and a new issue of the CROPDIVA project newsletter is also available.

This is only a small taste of what has been going on in the world of oats, and world events in general continue to be very stressful. While we’re waiting for Cark Maunsell to tell us more about the soothing properties of oats in his upcoming SOO webinar, why don’t you try this method for making an oatmeal bath?

Take good care of your outsides and your insides in these trying times!