Happy Equinox, everyone!

This past summer, a number of oat researchers and their work appeared in the news. First, the final report from the QUOATS project, which involved a number of UK research institutions, government organizations, and industry partners, was released. It can be found on-line here, as well as in the Research Reports section.

Then, on August 4th, Louisa Winkler, PhD student at Washington State U., was quoted in an article about locally grown oats in the Seattle Times.

At the end of August, the latest issue of POGA’s “Oat Scoop” newsletter was published, and it mentions a number of western Canadian oat researchers and their work, with a feature story on Jim Dyck.

“Oat Scoop” also brings us news of the passing of Barbara Podhorodeski. Barbara was an oat producer, not a researcher, but she did a lot of work for POGA and other agricultural organizations, and came to speak to us at the CORE oat genomics meeting held in Ottawa in 2013. Photos of her from that meeting are in the Image Gallery (#23 and #24).

One of the oat researchers mentioned in the “Oat Scoop” is Jennifer Mitchell Fetch, and she also features in three new articles in the Oat Newsletter. The first is in the Research Reports section and discusses her use of the oat nursery in New Zealand. The others are in the Community News section: one describes the Brandon, AAFC, oat tour this past summer, and the other describes the North American oat breeders’ tour.

The breeders’ tour article was submitted by Steve Harrison. He is also featured in another newsletter that was published recently: the 2015 Louisiana Soybean and Grain Research and Promotion Board Report.

There is one more new story in our Community News section, and it describes the annual ECORC, AAFC oat tour that was held in Ottawa in July. (Neither Steve nor Jennifer was there, but Bruce Roskens attended the tours in both Brandon and Ottawa!) This article also appeared in AAFC’s Science and Technology Branch newsletter.

As for other events, we have three new listings: PlantLink Day will be held at SLU Alnarp, Sweden, on October 1st, and POGA’s 2015 AGM will be held in Moose Jaw, SK, on December 3rd. There will also be a virtual conference on plant genomics held on October 21st, with Mark Sorrells as a keynote speaker. All the details are in the events listing at the bottom of the home page. Don’t forget the other events coming up as well, including Oats2020 in November! Registration for Oats2020 is ongoing, and the programme for the meeting has been updated.