It is said that once something is on the internet it never goes away, and that seemed to be true recently when someone told me that they had used the "Wayback Machine" to find some information while the newsletter server was down! So, we’re going to go back in time also, to look at more material that, under normal circumstances, would have been posted several months ago.

Let's begin with the Cereal Rust Bulletins from the USDA-ARS. Go here to see the reports from this past season, and here if you would just like to see the final summary.

Two issues of the "Oat Scoop" newsletter from POGA have also become available since this newsletter was last updated: the ones for March and June. POGA has also been very active on 'X' in more recent months. Normally, the most relevant posts would have been added to the "Weekly Web Harvest" updates, but there have been so many that I'll direct you to their 'X' account instead.

Some of the posts relate to the AGMs coming up this winter (now posted in the calendar; see also the bottom of the home page). Another item that was highlighted was a study done by GIFS that showed that Canadian growers do very well at growing low-carbon-intensity oats. Two articles summarize the results - one from "Real Agriculture" magazine and one from GIFS itself. Another article highlighted by POGA was one describing how community-based initiatives led to crop improvement and protection in the Canadian prairies.

Also in western Canada, word is that the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan will expand its research facilities. This is good news for Aaron Beattie, who was recently in the news discussing a promising new variety from his breeding program, as well as how difficult it is for farmers to access drought tolerance ratings for different varieties.

In eastern Canada, the Atlantic Grains Council published an article by AAFC researchers in PEI about lodging and disease management practices for oats in the Maritimes.

Crown rust resistance is much easier to measure than drought tolerance or lodging, but even that can be improved, as Craig Carlson from the USDA-ARS discusses in this interview on using imaging and AI tools in breeding.

Of course, the T3/Oat database holds a huge amount of data for many traits, accessions, and locations. It's even easier to upload data now, as described in the latest T3 newsletter.

In terms of genomics data, genomic selection is becoming a more routine tool, but there are many challenges. Some of those are outlined in this article featuring Wubi Bekele. As many of you know, Wubi works at AAFC's Ottawa Research and Development Centre (as do I), and the centre recently put out this video describing the work being done there.

The centre was also in the news after our recent Oat Day event. A link to one of those stories is in this summary of the event, posted in the "Community News" section of the newsletter.

One of the presenters was agronomist Austin Bruch. Like POGA, Austin has also been very active on social media, posting mostly short videos. These are often about his experiments growing winter oats in southern Ontario, and can be found on Instagram, 'X', and Bluesky.

Jeff Reid and Phil Bailey from SeCan also made presentations. SeCan has supported AAFC breeding programs for many years, and recently sponsored this webinar on ag sector partnerships.

Oat Day presenter Mehtab Singh has been much in the news recently (here, here, here (in French), and here) for his work on a CRISPR-based system for gene editing in oat. Mehtab is a PhD student in Jaswinder Singh's lab, and the lab members have been presenting their work at various conferences recently (see here and here). Jaswinder himself was recently presented with the Mary E. Spencer award by the Canadian Society of Plant Biologists. This award "recognizes outstanding plant biology research contributions and active public service engagement". Congratulations, Jaswinder!

My own presentation on Oat Day referred, in part, to the European CROPDIVA project. Back in May, this group, along with members of the LEGENDARY project, held a symposium on "Agrobiodiversity Along the Value Chain" at IRTA in Lleida, Spain. An article about the oat-related parts of the symposium is posted in the "Other meetings" section of the newsletter.

After five years, the CROPDIVA project came to an end last month. The project website has links to their newsletters (e.g., this one, which includes a link to an article (in German) about a presentation made by Steffen Beuch) and published articles (e.g., this one by Selma Schurack, et al., on powdery mildew resistance), as well as a whole slew of practice abstracts, many of which describe oat-related projects.

One of the presenters at the symposium was Borja Rojas-Panadero, a PhD student in Elena Prats' lab at IAS-CSIC in Córdoba. Elena's lab has a great social media presence. Take a look at their accounts on Instagram and 'X' to learn more about their work.

Catherine Howarth was a big part of CROPDIVA, and she also spends a lot of time promoting new IBERS oat varieties developed by Sandy Cowan and Irene Griffiths for Senova in the UK. She recently accepted the 2025 NIAB Variety Cup for the development of the winter oat 'Mascani' at the Cereals event in June. This is a very well-established older variety that was bred when the team was led by John Valentine. The first cross was made in 1995, but there were many years of trials before the variety was released in 2004. Congratulations to the whole IBERS breeding team!

A short video of the ceremony was released, as well as a group photo. This video describes some up-and-coming varieties, and a new winter oat called 'Rannoch' is now being advertised.

You can also see Catherine discussing intercropping in this video. Intercropping was and is a big part of the CROPDIVA, LEGENDARY, and IntercropVALUES projects. More about a case study from the latter project can be found here.

Intercropping is also becoming a big thing in Ireland. Irish researchers are also involved in the Oat Frontiers project, which focusses on growing oats in northern climates. Atik Rahman shares his perspective on that in this video. Other groups are from Wales, Norway, Iceland, Finland, and Sweden. Iceland seems a particularly interesting place to grow oats, not just because of its climate, but because of its volcanic soils and piles of just plain ash. The latest Oat Frontiers newsletter is here and you can also follow them on 'X'.

In southern Sweden, Alf Ceplitis is the oat breeder at Lantmännen, and he talks about new breeding techniques and crossing frequency in this LinkedIn post.

Lantmännen Biorefineries produces all kinds of ingredients from oats, and you can receive a copy of their white paper on "The Missing Piece in Plant-Based Nutrition" by filling out this form.

All of this oat production produces a lot of waste hulls (husks), and another group in Sweden is researching how to use them for cellulose production.

Back to thinking about ash, I am reminded of Ash Weise. He was recently featured in a GRDC podcast, talking about his farm and the grains industry in Australia.

Allan Rattey from InterGrain was featured in a GRDC story about risk management options for frost-prone areas. A video about InterGrain's oat phenology experiments can be seen here, and Al's own 'X' account provides more information about growing oats in Australia. GRDC also published a story about the work on oat flowering time that Meredith McNeil is doing at CSIRO.

GIWA, in Western Australia, held a major event called OATSPO in 2024, and more about that, plus a final report containing research results, can be found here.

On the food side of things, researchers at SARDI, including John Harris, Hailey Phan, and Janine Croser, are looking to breed oats with lower oil content, as described in this article.

It was mentioned in the last update that September is Whole Grains Month, and AEGIC has found that there is a growing demand for oat-based products in Asia being driven by health and wellness trends.

People are always looking for new trends, but looking to the past can be beneficial as well. The old and new come together in Alison Kaye's new (free) course on fermenting oats in different ways to make oatcakes, sowans (from Scotland), and llymru (from Wales).

Something else combining the old and the new is the Golden Spurtle World Porridge Championship, and that is coming up in Carrbridge, Scotland, on October 4th. This year, there are thirty competitors from all over the world! If you’re in the UK, you can also go see a movie about the competition, which is in theatres now. If that's not an option, then you can still watch the movie trailer.

Looking for a latte afterwards? Well, you can let your favorite coffee shop know about the Oater Barista Machine, made in Germany. It produces fresh oat drink on site!

From old to new, from way back to new trends, there’s a lot going on in the world of oats. The next update will feature reports on recent research, so, if you’d like to submit something for that, the perfect time is now!