(or try not to Fall too hard!)

Happy Easter to those of you celebrating! If you’re looking to bake any treats for the holiday, why not try Chocolate Peanut Butter Oat Cookie nests? The recipe has been added to the "Recipes" section.

There are three new Research Reports this time: variety descriptions from Cal Qualset at UC Davis, a summary of a paper on crown rust resistance mechanisms from Elena Prats’ group in Spain, and an update concerning T3/Oat from Clare Saied. Two new articles have also been added to the "Hall of Fame" section: news of another award for Vern Burrows (congratulations, Vern!) and an obituary for Jack Schafer, who passed away in 2007.

I hope everyone is working hard on their abstracts for the 10th International Oat Conference in July. The deadline for submission is April 1st, which is also the deadline for early-bird registration!

The conference program looks very interesting. It includes a trip to the world-renowned N.I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Genetic Resources. This facility was recently featured in a movie called "Seeds of Time" about Carey Fowler and the establishment of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. (I’m pretty sure I saw Åsmund Bjørnstad make an appearance towards the end of the film – see if you can find him!)

Finally, if you’re going to be in the vicinity of Baton Rouge, LA, on April 20th, stop by LSU AgCenter’s wheat and oat field day! Steve Harrison is such a gracious host, and I’m sure that he would be pleased to see you.