The first issue of the Oat Newsletter was published in 1950 by the National Oat Conference. Its purpose was to supplement the Uniform Nursery reports by providing short research updates, meeting information, community information, and reports from oat research stations concerning yields, disease outbreaks, etc.. This expanded over the years, with increasing numbers and types of contributions, many coming from outside the Americas. The conference name was changed to the American Oat Workers Conference at the meeting in 1974 and a separate International Oat Conference was established in 1982.

The archive (http://oatnews.org/newsletter_archives) provides access to every issue of the Oat Newsletter ever published, from 1950 (when it was called the National Oat Newsletter) on.  Many thanks to Gabe Gusmini from PepsiCo, Inc. and Mark Sorrells from Cornell University for making this possible. The image above represents a summary of the first 50 volumes of the Oat Newsletter.