... your place for oat information.

Seems my timing was a little off this month.... There have been further changes to the 10th International Oat Conference deadlines: the early bird registration deadline is now April 15th, and you have until May 1st to get in those abstracts! Other deadlines may also be changing, so keep an eye on the website.

I also have an important request from Nezha Saidi, who is the Curator of Forage and Pasture Legumes Genetic Resources at INRA in Morocco:

(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.

The tenth International Oat Conference, Oats 2016, will be held from July 11th-15th, 2016, in St. Petersburg, Russia. Registration is open, and further details concerning presentation abstracts (due April 1st), accommodation, etc., can be found on the website.

Plant and Animal Genome (PAG) XXIV was held in January, and included a workshop dedicated to oats. Links to the presentations given at the workshop can now be found in the "Other Meetings" section. Oat-related poster abstracts are also listed.

We have lots for you to digest in this update. First, in the Research Reports section, we have a copy of the latest SARDI oat breeding newsletter. Also, the November issue of the Prairie Oat Growers Association newsletter is now on the POGA website.

“…raise the song of harvest home.”(1) All is, one hopes, “safely gathered in”, at least in the Northern hemisphere! In this season of Thanksgiving, let us take some time to reflect upon the things for which we are thankful, including this wonderful community.

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.

“Summertime, and the livin’ is easy, crews are jumpin’, and the oats are ripe….”  Or something to that effect (1).  For those of you for whom it is summer, I hope that you are enjoying some time off as well as having a great field season!

It would be wonderful to hear how everyone has been doing in the field.  What have conditions been like for you?  How are your lines performing?  Did you host a field tour?  Many of the research reports in the Oat Newsletter archives are summaries of what happened in the field.

Welcome to the new and improved version of the Oat Newsletter!  Many thanks to Gerard Lazo, the site administrator, for putting all of this together.

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.