... your place for oat information.

The USDA-ARS in Fargo, ND, is hiring a Food Technologist/Research Chemist to study oat quality. The announcement can be viewed here. Please note that this position is only open to US citizens and nationals. The deadline to apply is Friday, December 3rd. That may be extended for an additional two weeks if there are not enough qualified candidates.

There is a new Research Leader for the Cereal Crops Research Unit at USDA-ARS in Fargo.  Please welcome Dr. Rajeev Gupta to our community! .

The annotations for version 2 of the OT3098 genome sequence are now available on Graingenes! An article by Mandy Waters describing the annotation process and listing the available files is in the "Research Reports" section.

The next “Speaking of Oats…” (SOO) webinar will be held Tuesday, November 23rd, at 2:00 pm (1400 hrs) Eastern time (EST - Canada/USA).

**Please note that this is not our usual day or time**

Atik Rahman has a PhD scholarship opportunity with his oat research team at Teagasc, in Carlow, Ireland.  The project title is "Identifying and quantifying limitations to oat yield under Irish conditions (QUIC Oats)".  More details can be found here.

Please share this information widely!  The deadline to apply is November 5th.

The next "Speaking of Oats..." webinar will be on October 21st at 11:00 am EDT. Axel Diederichsen (Plant Gene Resources of Canada, AAFC) will be speaking to us about "The impact of global changes on oat conservation and exchange at Plant Gene Resources of Canada". This presentation will include information about legal requirements set out in what is commonly known as the Plant Treaty (ITPGRFA, the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture).

The USDA-ARS is seeking to fill three scientist positions, all of which are permanent, and one of which is a Research Leader position (US citizenship is required for all three):

1) Supervisory Research Plant Pathologist/Research Geneticist, Aberdeen, ID

https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/614665000

Open & closing dates - 09/20/2021 to 10/19/2021

Everyone could use a good mentor, and an effort is now underway to provide support to young plant breeders everywhere. Linc Thomas, who works with the Borlaug Training Foundation, is writing a book tentatively called “Letters to a Young Plant Breeder” and is seeking help from those of you who are well-established in your plant breeding careers. More details about this project are in the "Community News" section.

The “Speaking of Oats…” (SOO) webinar series returns this month. Join us on Thursday, September 16th, at 11:00 am Eastern time (EDT - Canada/USA) to hear from Shahryar Kianian and Oluseyi Fajolu (both USDA-ARS), and Eric Nazareno (University of Minnesota). They will talk to us about “Oat Crown Rust: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly”.

The newest member of the oat community joined us on Tuesday, August 10, 2021. Congratulations to Georgie Troup on the safe arrival of her son, Samuel Edward Somers!

This brief update brings opportunities for young researchers in the form of three job opportunities:

Field days are a big part of oat research, even if some of them have to be held virtually these days. Looking forward to the OAT2022 (11th IOC) meeting next year in Australia, there will be a field day, but please note that no additional seed can be sent for inclusion in the trials. This is because of Australia’s strict quarantine regulations.