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Happy 2018, everybody!

Season’s Greetings, one and all! This newsletter update is all about wants and wishes. For example, the folks at Oatly AB were complaining that there were no holiday songs about beta-glucans, so I fulfilled that wish and wrote one….

Here, now, is your chance to fulfill someone else’s wishes:

This newsletter update focuses on stories from the community, and, yes, community matters! There are always good news stories and bad news stories, and, unfortunately, this update brings some bad news: Lon Hall, long-time oat breeder at South Dakota State University, passed away in August. His obituary can be found here, and a more detailed description of his work with oats will be added to the "Hall of Fame" later on.

Today, October 10th, 2017, is World Porridge Day. The Scottish village of Carrbridge – home of the annual World Porridge Making Championship – teamed up with the Scottish-based charity Mary’s Meals to establish World Porridge Day. Mary’s Meals entices children in impoverished regions to stay in school by providing them with a daily meal, mostly in the form of the local version of porridge. By staying in school, the children are able to gain a basic education that can help them escape poverty.

Soothing words from Tom Rabaey!

It's summertime in the north, and everyone seems to be on the move. Aside from enjoying vacation time, a lot of people are participating in crop tours and other site visits. The next Oat Newsletter update will have a number of articles about those, but more are always welcome, so please send me your stories about any visiting that you've done!

In the meantime, what I have for you is another round-up of news from the Web, which is available in the “Community News” section.

The Figueroa lab at the University of Minnesota is asking American oat growers to send them leaf samples infected with crown rust. Further details can be found here (in the "Community News" section). Please spread the word, and thank you for any help you can provide!

The oat research community has been around for a long time, and this newsletter update brings you a whole new section called “Historical Documents”. In this section, you can find copies of hard-to-find books and documents from years past, as well as more recent histories describing past oat research. Don’t forget that the Oat Newsletter archive is also available! Both of these sections can be found under the “Research” tab.

Let’s try again…the “SWOT” analysis initiated by Chris Green at the 10th IOC has been completed, and is presented in the “Research Reports” section, as are three new T3/Oat tutorials from Clare Saied.

I also came across two documents of special interest published on-line by the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative: both volumes of “The Cereal Rusts”, originally published in the 1980’s:

Happy 2017, Happy Year of the Rooster, and Happy Year of the Oat, as well! “Common oat” has been declared the “Medicinal Plant of the Year” by the Study Group for the Historical Development of Medicinal Plant Science at Würzburg University, Germany. You can read all about it in the “Community News” section.