This is the first time POGA has had co-presidents. Ralph is also the first president elected from Saskatchewan.

“We have two very capable individuals representing different regions. As a national commission, we span diverse crop rotations, soil types, and climates, and these individuals bring varied experiences and personalities to the role,” a spokesperson for POGA said in an emailed statement.

Ambrely Ralph farms east of Aborfield, Sask., with husband Garett and two children, POGA said in a news release. She is past chair of SaskOats.

Greg Bott farms with his parents near Eckville, Alta. He has extensive education in commerce, economics, and human rights law, and he recently completed a PhD in nonprofit leadership and governance.

“I am honored to be a Co-President alongside Greg, and am also very grateful for the opportunity to work alongside such a dedicated and knowledgeable team of directors and staff,” Ralph said in the news release. “I look forward to contributing to the growth of our oat farming community.”

Bott thanked outgoing president Brad Boettger for his leadership.

POGA said having co-presidents will allow them to distribute the responsibilities between two people while leveraging two different skill sets. Ralph and Bott will also be able to support each other to provide a stronger leadership presence while “maintaining momentum for key initiatives,” the spokesperson said.

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The survey Minogue sites (conducted by AFA, APAS and KAP) also shows that the majority of producers do state that “increased investment in crop development is required provided it ensures long-term stable funding for public and university breeding programs.” The producers POGA has spoken with have stated they are willing to pay more for breeding but they want accountability on where those dollars are spent and want those dollars to actually go back to breeding and not towards increased profits for companies (some comments made suggest that well under 25 per cent may actually go back to breeding in the current proposed models).

Based on this feedback (received at many “Value Creation” events POGA attended last winter), in January 2019 POGA requested a third model be added to the consultation process, whereby increased check-offs would be collected on behalf of breeders with 100 per cent of that additional amount to be paid to the breeder as determined by an independent company or agency based on acres planted of each crop variety (as obtained by insured seeded acres data). This request was made to the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) in January of 2019 but POGA was told that they would only include another model if one were presented to, and approved by, the Grains Roundtable (GRT), therefore, POGA made that request to that group in January 2019 as well.

POGA, once again, would ask the federal government to include additional options for producers to consider in the “Value Creation” framework, including increasing checkoffs to the not-for-profit, farmer-led commissions with those dollars being directed 100 per cent to private and public breeding programs. Producers continue to state they are willing to pay for improved varieties, but most are not happy with the two options provided. The question really comes down to is Canada looking to fund breeders for better varieties, and do so in a way that producers are happy with, or is this really a way for seed companies to collect extra dollars from producers?

A full article about POGA’s request can be found in the June 2019 edition of the Oat Scoop which can be read at poga.ca/news/oat-scoop/431-oat-scoop-june-2019.

Shawna Mathieson is the executive director of the Prairie Oat Growers Association.

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The good news is that researchers are looking at new, value-added products that provide increased health benefits to consumers. Thanks to improvements in oat breeding and agronomic practices, Canadian oat yields have increased by 18 per cent on average over the past five years, a greater yield increase than any other cereal crops. More new varieties that offer better disease resistance, improved yield and quality are being made available to growers, and expanded market access to countries like China are being explored.

The not-so-good news is the reduction in funding available to breeders. PepsiCo (owner of Quaker) has eliminated around $600, 000 in funding for Canadian public oat research and Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) reduced its oat-breeding funding from 75 per cent to 50 per cent earlier this year.

“The loss of funding is a large percentage of the total amount of oat breeding dollars that were contributed each year,” says Shawna Mathieson, executive director of the Prairie Oat Growers Association (POGA). “Due to this, all the oat breeding programs are attempting to continue the good work they have been doing with significantly less dollars. Western Canadian oat breeders still receive breeding program support from every other major oat miller, oat growers through the provincial check-offs, and many other industry players to attempt to alleviate the shortfall this reduced funding has created.”

The reduction in funding means that breeders are asking producer organizations to increase their funding. “The oat grower commissions have increased funding to both the CDC and the AAFC oat breeding programs (both the conventional and organic breeding programs) which means there is less money for other research, marketing initiatives and policy work,” says Mathieson.

The show goes on

Oat breeders are, however, a determined bunch, and there is still a lot of work being done to develop varieties that meet the priorities of growers, millers and consumers.

Oat breeding work has been ongoing at AAFC since 1995, first at the Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg until its closure in 2014, and since then at the Brandon Research and Development Centre. The program is part of the Prairie Oat Breeding Consortium, which receives provincial-federal cost-shared funding through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP), POGA and a number of industry partners.

The main focus of the program remains the development of high-yielding cultivars with improved abiotic stress, disease and pest resistance, that perform well across all of Western Canada and have the good milling qualities that the industry demands, says research scientist, Jennifer Mitchell Fetch, who heads the program.

Dr. Aaron Beattie at the Crop Development Centre (CDC) at the University of Saskatoon has just wrapped up a three-year project to try and identify the pathogens that cause leaf blotch in oats. After sampling commercial fields over three years, Beattie discovered that the predominant pathogen is a close neighbour of the one that causes net blotch in barley and tan spot in wheat.

The good news is they found sources of resistance to multiple isolates of the pathogen in oat germplasm they evaluated and developed genetic markers to help incorporate the resistance into future oat varieties. “We believe that this gene, if deployed, should do a good job of looking after this disease,” says Beattie.

“I don’t know that we’re going to get it in Canada any time soon, but I am concerned about powdery mildew on oats, which has been a problem in Europe,” says Mitchell Fetch. “What breeders have to do is think 10 years down the road so that they can look for genes that will provide resistance to disease or pests and make those crosses 10 years before the problem arises in Canada.”

What makes an organic oat?

Most recent cultivars from Mitchell Fetch’s program are AAC Justice (distributed through FP Genetics) and the program’s second organic variety, AAC Kongsore that will be marketed through Grain Millers.

An organic cultivar is evaluated under organic management throughout its lifecycle. Mitchell-Fetch worked closely with Martin Entz at the University of Manitoba and Dean Spaner at the University of Alberta to test and select the best oat material under organically managed field plots which eventually led to the release of AAC Kongsore. In an organic cultivar, breeders look for specific traits that allow it to perform better under organic management conditions.

“That could be things like quick emergence where the oat plant can beat the weeds and cover the weeds so they don’t get as much light,” says Mitchell Fetch. “Or maybe the plant is more efficient at using nutrients that are available.”

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Disease management strategies begin with choosing the right varieties, says agronomist Jason Voogt, with Field 2 Field Agronomy in Carman, Man. Producers need to be aware of which resistant gene packages different varieties have, while researchers and agronomists are keeping a close eye on the length of time they’ll have diseases overcome some of those resistance packages.

“We know that because of the nature of crown rust, that it can develop resistance to the resistant genes that we currently have in plants,” says Voogt. “We’re also aware of the need to change things up as far as varieties if necessary, but disease management always a start with the variety and also looking at the rotation.”

Understanding diseases

It’s important to understand the difference between fungal, bacterial and viral diseases, how they occur and how to manage them. Producers can find some good information about oat diseases on the Prairie Oat Growers Association (POGA) website.

Fungal diseases include things like crown rust, stem rust, septoria leaf blotch and fusarium. Producers have options including early seeding (for rusts that arrive in spring), resistant varieties (in the case of crown rust only) and fungicides to manage fungal diseases in oats.

Fungicides are not effective against diseases caused by bacteria, such as bacterial blight, so the best option for management is good crop rotation.

Viral diseases like barley yellow dwarf virus, although not as common as other oat diseases, cannot be controlled by chemicals, and while some oat varieties are more tolerant of the disease, none are resistant to it. Early seeding and plant rotation can be effective management techniques.

Crown and stem rust

Because rust disease spores blow in on wind currents from the United States, agronomists and provincial disease specialists keep a close eye on the movements of rust up through North Dakota to Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta to try and determine the potential each year for rust to occur. “Combine that with our current, local weather conditions and then from there we will determine if a fungicide application is necessary,” says Voogt.

Most provincial agriculture departments issue crop disease and pest updates throughout the growing season, and another good source of information for growers, especially in regards to these types of wind-blown foliar diseases, is the North Dakota State University Crop and Pest Report, which producers can subscribe to free of charge online.

“NDSU puts that out every Thursday during the growing season, and if crown rust is an issue there, they’ll talk about where it is, what severity as far as what counties they’re finding it in and they track it,” says Voogt. “Being able to see the progression maybe northward it can indicate when we might have to start doing tighter scouting, and if it’s going to be coinciding at all with the susceptibility of the varieties that we’re growing, because the disease may come in late enough that we’re already past the time of susceptibility.”

Scout to make sure it’s rust

In oats, the crop is most susceptible to crown rust at the early flag leaf stage through to panicle emergence, so that’s when producers should be scouting diligently if there is a risk that the pathogen may be present. As well, whenever the leaf remains wet for 12 or more hours, so when heavy dew, rain or thunderstorm events have taken place, spores that drop out of the atmosphere into the crop have a very suitable environment for infection.

“Those are the kind of things producers want to be watching for in that particular window of susceptibility,’ says Voogt. “On top of that, when they are out there scouting, they need to check not just the upper leaves but the lower leaves of the plants for the early stage of what might be crown rust.”

Typically, producers will see a very small chlorotic area on the leaf that eventually forms a bright orange pustule. Because other diseases, like bacterial blight, can look similar to crown rust though, Voogt says producers should rub the pustule with their thumb or finger nail to see if the rust comes off.

“At that timing stage, bacterial blight is another disease we should keep an eye out for,” says Voogt. “In some cases, some of the lesions will look quite bright in colour and sometimes can be confusing to a grower as far as comparing it to crown rust, so that physical wiping of that rust pustule to see it comes off is probably the truest way to find out that it is truly rust and not something else that look alike.”

Stem rust tends to arrive a little later than crown rust, but there are no resistant varieties for producers to choose, so it’s something that needs to be watched for. Last year’s dry seeding conditions meant some oat crops emerged unevenly, and later in the season, Voogt noticed later emerging plants in wheel tracks and drains that retained more late moisture, did have some stem rust.

“It came in late enough that it wasn’t a concern, but it is something that we want to continue to watch out for because if it ever arrives earlier, it would be something that we’d have to be looking at dealing with a possible fungicide application,” says Voogt.

Rotation an essential tool

Bacterial blight is caused by a bacteria and so fungicides are not effective against the disease, which has the ability to overwinter on straw or seed, so good straw management that allows straw to decompose, proper rotation and using clean seed are all effective control methods.

Rotation remains an important tool for disease management in oats. “I would suggest every two to three years, more likely three, would be probably the best-case scenario for a grower to be looking at rotating out of oats for disease management, especially for those diseases that do overwinter, like the bacterial blights and maybe to the lesser degree septoria species to allow that straw to decompose properly,” says Voogt. “If we are starting to see those diseases becoming more common then I think that’s probably where a grower would have to maybe look at widening that rotation even more.”

Septoria leaf diseases are similar to the other diseases in that they thrive under moderate temperatures and moist conditions where there is 12 or more hours of leaf wetness, but they generally occur earlier in the growing season because they primarily come from infected straw.

“It is not a primary concern because usually we haven’t had oats on those fields for a number of years so there isn’t going to be a lot of those cases where a local infection come in from straw unless for example, a field is that’s adjacent to a field that was oats the previous year,” says Voogt. “You could then see the movement of disease from rain splash and things like that into the adjacent crop, but if we continued to have leaf wetness early in the growing season, you would probably see a little bit more development if that straw is there to produce the spores.”

Besides using crop rotation, the same fungicides registered for managing crown rust or stem rust are registered on septoria, and application at early flag leaf is the most effective to give protection at that stage and at panicle emergence as well.

Watch for look-a-likes

As well there can be damage to plants that looks like a disease but is in fact caused by environmental conditions, with the hot, dry conditions this past summer being a good example.

“It doesn’t happen every year, but we had it happen this past summer where we had rapid growth of the crop followed by very hot, humid days with strong winds,” says Voogt. “A few days after we started to notice the oat crops had a very dark, almost brownish hue to them. The newly emerged leaves looked like they were burnt off and that was due to those winds. So basically, it was rapid growth, susceptible stage of the crop combined with this hot wind where you were losing lots of moisture out of the leaves and quicker than it could replenish them and so you were getting this leaf tip scorching.”

Something like this, which can develop in a short period of time can cause a lot of panic, so Voogt had to get the message out quickly to growers that this was an environmental issue and not a disease. “We didn’t want them to start applying a fungicide because it wouldn’t do anything, and the oats would recover and there would not be a yield impact.”

With both crown rust and stem rust, the primary source of infection is going to be re-infection coming up from North Dakota and further south in the U.S., but there is an alternate host in Manitoba for crown rust, which is a shrub that grows along certain creeks and tributaries called buckthorn. “There is a potential for infection coming from there within Manitoba in the growing season, so producers growing oats close to areas where buckthorn is present could tighten up their scouting just to be aware of it,” says Voogt.

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At the University of Alberta’s Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Science, Dr. Lingyun Chen is leading three research projects in collaboration with the Prairie Oat Growers Association (POGA): oat-protein enriched beverages, a lactose-free, oat-based coffee additive and products containing oat fractions.

Using all the parts

Traditionally, oats have been used in their whole ingredient form for products such as flour, groats, flaked and rolled oats. Most current fractionation methods focus on extracting one or two ingredients from oats, often resulting in decreased quality, functionality and usability of the remaining product and reducing the value-added potential of oats.

Chen is using a cost-effective new air classification machine to extract all the oat ingredient fractions in usable form; beta-glucan (fibre), protein, starch and oil. The goal is to develop one to three prototype products from each oat fraction and try to interest retailers and food processors in using the products. For example, oat protein has similarities to egg whites, and could be used in vegan foods.

Helping cancer patients

For sellers to claim their food products as high-protein, the foods must contain 10 to 20 per cent more protein that regular foods. It’s not always easy to incorporate that much protein — especially from plant sources — and make foods that are appetizing as well as nutritious. This makes oat a versatile choice because it has a relatively neutral taste and flavour. Combining oats with pulse proteins improves the nutritive value of the final foods. “Cereal proteins and pulse proteins are complimentary in amino acids,” says Chen.

Another project is working on high-oat-protein beverages: a high-fibre, protein enriched shake suitable for people who are lactose intolerant; and, a nutritious, oat-based beverage with the sensory and nutritional properties to improve the quality of life of patients undergoing radiation therapy.

“Many cancer patients have digestion issues, they cannot swallow food, and they have different sensory requirements,” says Chen. “We think an oat-based beverage is a good formulation for cancer patients because it can provide the protein they need to build muscle and the beta-glucan could help to improve their condition after cancer treatment.”

Cancer patients at the Cross Cancer Institute in Alberta have tested the oat-based beverage, fortified with vitamins and Omega-3 fatty acids. “According to sensory tests, most of the cancer patients appreciate the taste and also the nutritive value so that’s a good start,” says Chen. The next step is to assess the effect of consuming the beverage on cancer patient’s overall condition. “The idea is that if this is acceptable, we can make this into a specific food for cancer patients that will improve their nutritive value. If we can find processors interested in producing this beverage it may be a large market for them, because currently there are not many choices for cancer patients in terms of food products.”

Chen’s team is also hoping to develop an oat-based coffee creamer that would be the first of its kind on the market. Combining oat protein and beta-glucan they hope to produce a functional and competitive lactose-free coffee additive.

All of these value-added projects are demonstrating that oat is not only a productive and valuable crop for farmers, but that it’s also an important and versatile functional food with many uses and benefits for human health.

“We have prototype products developed and are working with the food industry to bring this to the next step,” says Chen. “Certainly, this research attracts a lot of interest in the industry.”

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The two varieties — named ORe 3541M and ORe 3542M — will be available through SeCan. They’re are both short, medium maturity varieties with resistance to crown rust. On-farm yields across the Prairies in the last two years have been excellent. In Manitoba, even with dry conditions the last couple of years, farmers saw yields of 150 bu./acre to 190 bu./acre for the two varieties; comparable to established oat varieties such as CS Camden and AC Summit.

“We have seen some good management through the growing season and for harvest and both these varieties have very good grain quality, which I think will redefine a little bit of where we could go with oats as an industry,” says Dyck.

What is setting these new varieties apart is the consistent, high grain quality. They both have a larger percentage of plump seeds, which is important to millers. Thin seeds are cleaned off during the milling process and either sold as feed or thrown out. “Our varieties have about one or two per cent of thin seed, which is very low,” says Dyck. “Often, mills are having to discard a significant portion of thin seed.”

That’s important for growers because consistent, high grain quality is what millers are always looking for. Millers will be running grain produced this year through their facilities to evaluate them but from what they have seen so far, millers seem to be excited about the new varieties.

Dyck says touring the Richardson mill at Portage la Prairie a few years ago gave him a good sense of what millers look for in an oat variety. “You can see how the size and the shape of the grain is so important to them as you see the realities of what flows through a mill,” he says. “The size and shape really has a big effect, so that gave me even more encouragement to make sure that not only do these varieties that we produce do well on the farm, but that they go through the mills well.”

Time to re-imagine oats

Oats have been something of a Cinderella crop over the years, not attracting as much research interest or funding as other cereal crops like wheat.

“A hundred years ago a large amount of the farm acreage would be put into oats just for horses, and they were always seeded last because they didn’t matter so much. Oat hasn’t had as much work done on it, so it’s a bit cluttered genetically, but what that means is that there is lots of room for improvement and that’s exciting,” says Dyck. “I think that with ongoing research and development we can redesign and re-imagine oats. Oats have fibre that reduces cholesterol and has many health benefits and there is the potential to do so much more with oats. “

Dyck’s future oat breeding projects include looking at increasing yields through restructuring the plant architecture, increasing protein content and developing oats that are less dusty and itchy.

“What we see in the field right now is the ability to reshape the architecture of the oat panicle a little bit,” says Dyck. “As we go through some of the crosses that we’ve made and the genetics that we’re developing, there are some improved looking panicles that have a nice balanced look and more seeds per stock. So we are working on re-directing the oat plant to reshape their panicles to have a higher yield. That’s where we are going with the ‘ORe’: oats re-designed and re-imagined.”

Protein is important

Plant protein is a big area of focus for the food sector today as consumers look for meat replacements and higher protein foods. Oats generally have a protein level in the 14 to 15 per cent range, but Dyck believes it’s possible to raise protein to 20 per cent or more.

The Prairie Oat Growers Association is working with the Government of Canada to try and improve market access for oats into China. After attending a conference in China in 2012, Dyck says he was surprised by the amount of oats that the Chinese eat. “They turn oats into noodles, wraps, perogies. They use oat flour for everything, so if we can access their markets and give them a good product that would be a huge impact on oats,” says Dyck. Currently, Australia is able to ship commodity oats to China, while there are restrictions for Canada.

With regard to hulless oats, there is a variant that has hairless kernels which have been around for a while, but Dyck is trying to produce a regular, hulled milling oat without hair to make them less itchy. He also will be looking at how the dust from oats affects mechanical milling processes and whether reducing the dust would have benefits for the milling industry. “Once these types of things are genetically in place in the oat crop, it could be there permanently so other researchers can work with it too,” says Dyck.

There should be enough seed of ORe 3541M and ORe 3542M available for about 100,000 acres for the 2019 growing season and millers are already contracting growers for these varieties.

What do the numbers mean?

Plant breeders and seed companies all have their own preferences when it comes to naming varieties, but those numbers you see on the seed tub or sign in a field usually mean something. In the case of the two new oat varieties from Oat Advantage — ORe3541M and ORe 3542M — they describe the performance and traits that they offer.

3: Very good lodging resistance (on a scale of 1 best to 9 worst)
5: Medium maturity (on a scale of 1 earliest to 9 latest)
4: Above average yield (on a scale of 1 best to 9 worst)
1 and 2: First and second in the series for this agronomic line
M: Milling

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“I was alarmed because I really hadn’t heard of an issue. I hadn’t seen an issue,” said Willenborg, assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan and editor-in-chief of the Canadian Journal of Plant Sciences.

• Read more: Controlling cleavers without quinclorac
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“So I kind of dug into the data and I can tell you the literature’s silent on this, folks.”

That knowledge gap inspired what Willenborg called a “look-see” experiment.

The experiment

Willenborg and Nancy Ames, cereal researcher with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), presented findings from a preliminary experiment examining pre-harvest glyphosate treatments on oats.

The study was done at two locations near Saskatoon, with four replications at each site. Researchers used two cultivars, CDC Dancer and AC Pinnacle.

Researchers measured the results of three different harvest systems:

• swath at 35 per cent seed moisture;
• direct harvest, no glyphosate; and,
• direct harvest with a pre-harvest glyphosate treatment. It was applied at 30 per cent seed moisture at the label rate.

Researchers then measured the effects of different harvest systems on everything from test weight to milling quality. They also worked with the Canadian Grain Commission to test glyphosate residue.

Effects on yield, kernel size

The harvest systems’ effects were consistent with both oat varieties.

The swathing system saw an 18 per cent yield drop, Willenborg said. He explained they used a plot swather, which tends to lay down a poor swath in cereals. They won’t use that swather next time, he added.

“I don’t expect your yield reductions will be as great (with swathing).”

Willenborg said there was no adverse effect on yield with the glyphosate application. In fact, they saw a slight yield bump and significantly greater test weight, he added.

Researchers also found 40 per cent fewer thin kernels in the glyphosate system relative to the swathed oats. Both direct harvest systems produced more plump kernels than the swathed oats.

Researchers did detect glyphosate residue in the oats that received a pre-harvest treatment. But it was only four parts per million, which is well below allowable levels.

Willenborg noted the Canadian Grain Commission now has a glyphosate residue test for oat samples. “And we’re going to work with them and continue to send these samples in.”

While the results are preliminary, researchers found that harvest systems do affect physical quality.

“But in no instance did we see that the pre-harvest application of glyphosate had any negative influence on physical quality, relative to a well-timed swath or direct cut,” said Willenborg.

Effects on miling quality, flake quality

Ames said that in her lab “we tried to look at those quality characteristics that we thought would matter to grain millers, to others. Will this affect our marketability eventually?”

None of the harvest systems affected nutrients such as beta-glucan and protein, Ames said. But, unsurprisingly, growing location and variety did.

“These are different varieties. We expect beta-glucan to be different. These are different locations. Protein is always affected by location. Beta-glucan is affected by location,” said Ames.

Researchers also looked at oat pasting viscosity. A lower score means the oat flour will be less desirable for puffing and extrusion, Ames said. “The glyphosate treatment is no different than the straight combining. It’s exactly the same. But the swathing is considerably lower.”

All three harvest systems produced oats with similar groat breakage metrics, Ames said. The glyphosate treatment produced oats that were slightly better for milling yield, she added. Milling quality was similar in the glyphosate treatment and the other direct harvesting system.

Ames said they’d anticipated a difference with water absorption, which is one measure of flake quality.

“We do see some differences in flake quality with respect to the varieties and location, but not with the harvest treatments,” she said. Flake colour was also the same across harvest systems.

The bottom line is that variety and environment affected quality more than pre-harvest treatments, Ames said. Using glyphosate before straight combining resulted in milling quality similar to straight combining alone, she added.

Ames said they need to do more studies to see what happens when glyphosate is applied at different moisture stages.

Future work

Willenborg said they have a much larger project planned for the future. That project will look at weed control in oats and quality. Over the next two years, researchers will again examine three harvest systems; applying glyphosate pre-harvest in a direct cut, direct cutting without glyphosate, and swathing.

Each of those harvest systems will be tested at various seed moisture contents. Researchers will measure how timing affects functional quality, particularly with glyphosate treatments.

Willenborg said they also plan to measure stand uniformity. The goal is to see whether green tillers are a factor. If there’s an issue, they’ll look at whether higher seeding rates can reduce problems, he added.

The work around these studies has been funded by the Saskatchewan Oat Development Commission, the Prairie Oat Growers Association, and the Agriculture Development Fund.

A few caveats

Both Chris Willenborg and Nancy Ames noted the study was preliminary. “I caution the interpretation, because it is done just in a single year,” said Willenborg.

It’s also important to remember that research- ers followed the label when applying glyphosate before harvest.

If farmers go off-label, “that’s a black hole,” Willenborg said. “We don’t have data on that. We’re going to work on it. But at this point, if you’re doing everything by the book, so far we don’t have any indication that suggests there would be an issue there.”

The Prairie Oat Growers Association’s website also reminds farmers to follow the label when applying glypho- sate. If it’s applied pre-harvest when kernels are green (30 per cent moisture or better), farmers risk residue in the kernels that tops the limits. Farmers can avoid this by making sure the least mature parts of the field are below

30 per cent moisture. The association also notes that some customers have their own restrictions on pre-harvest glyphosate.

Willenborg also noted that the World Health Organization has declared glyphosate a possible carcinogen. Farmers and industry need to be aware of that designation, and consumer perceptions, going forward.

And finally, Willenborg reminded farmers that each additional use of glyphosate carries risks. “Most of our quarter sections are probably seeing two applications minimum per year.”

The United States has seen a 10- to 12-fold increase in glyphosate use over the last two decades, Willenborg said. Some States have 10 to 12 glyphosate-resistant weeds. And Western Canada is now seeing glyphosate-resistant weeds as well, he noted.

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“In Saskatchewan, specifically last year there was quite a bit of disease pressure from fusarium head blight in wheat,” says Shawna Mathieson, executive director of the Prairie Oat Growers Association (POGA). “Because of that some people switched some wheat acres to oats.”

Oat supplies had tightened over the past year partly due to transportation issues, and U.S. millers especially were looking for more supply in the spring, which helped stabilize prices. Although oat prices vary quite a lot from province to province, estimates for oats in Manitoba and Saskatchewan looked more profitable than canola or spring wheat last March. “Oats gained some acres when it looked like they were going to be more profitable than some other crops in the coming year,” says Mathieson. Oats also cost less to produce so there’s less risk. “You can put in oats and still make a good return on them with a lower input cost,” adds Mathieson.

About half of Canada’s oat production is exported to the U.S., and there are still issues with rail transportation. “Delivery is a major issue especially in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan. Manitoba doesn’t tend to have the same issues because they have more direct rail lines down to the U.S. and the oat growing area is closer to the U.S. so trucking is an easier option,” says Mathieson.

POGA continues to work alongside the transportation and grain industries to review the Canadian Transportation Act to help increase export opportunities.

• Read more: The story of oat breeding and research

Another factor that may have driven oat acres in some areas was late seeding, prompting growers to switch to oats because they have earlier maturity, says Ron Weik, seed portfolio manager for FP Genetics. “Oats is a tough crop. It will usually produce something even under very trying conditions,” says Weik. “If it doesn’t make maturity because of a drought or something, growers can still cut it for greenfeed, or bale it and sell it for hay.”

A good rotation crop

Oats has always been a small acreage crop and area is very price sensitive. There could be a lot more interest in oats as a rotation crop if growers could get more consistent pricing, says Mathieson. “In the spring oats was competitive with most crops, including canola, but most farmers consider canola one of their key rotation crops. It’s tough for oats to ‘buy’ acres from canola because in a typical year, oats does not compete well with canola on net margin,” she says.

The expected high yield from oats can be a double-edged sword. “One of the challenges we have in oats is that because you get higher yields the price per bushel is lower, and you also need extra storage than you would for soybean, canola or wheat,” says Mathieson. “Growers also have to factor in the cost of shipping because they ship three to four times the volume of oats per acre as they would canola. So there’s a cost for shipping and storage that has to be factored in. What I hear from growers in Saskatchewan is that they would like to see a minimum price of $3 a bushel to keep oats in their rotation and prices typically fluctuate from $2 to just over $3 per bushel.”

Millers and niche markets

Most oats produced in Western Canada ends up with millers, but marketing oats is more complex than selling other grain crops such as wheat. Millers publish lists of desirable oat varieties and specifications that growers must meet. Growers provide a sample of the approved variety they have grown for testing; if the miller accepts it they will be given a delivery schedule.

“There is a fair bit of oat milling capacity in Western Canada, especially in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and now in Alberta, which we don’t have for wheat, so the milling market is a big market,” says Weik. “One of the problems with oats is that there’s a futures market in Chicago but the market in Western Canada doesn’t always reflect that. The basis has become so wide that it’s got really no relationship to the Chicago price so it’s very much a supply and demand thing. Even in a year when we grow lots of oats, if the quality is not good for one reason or another, you can see some pretty attractive prices, provided you can meet the specifications the millers are looking for.”

There are some promising niche markets developing, such as gluten free, that are offering a premium for oats, although growers do have to adhere to stringent production specifications to ensure that there is no gluten contamination from prior crops such as wheat or barley.

Increasing the beta-glucan level in oats has been a focus for breeding programs over the past few years, as millers demand more beta-glucan content to enable them to make health claims about their products. Studies have shown that beta-glucan can help reduce cholesterol and may play a role in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases.

“For a heart-health claim to be made in the U.S. and for the Health Canada claim in Canada, there’s a minimum level of four milligrams of beta-glucan per kilogram, and a maximum level of seven per cent fat content, that millers have to meet in their products,” says Jennifer Mitchell Fetch, an oat breeder at AAFC’s Brandon Research and Development Centre at Brandon, Manitoba. “There are several things in the heart-health claim that are very beneficial for the consumer.”

“Varieties coming out of the AAFC oat breeding program tend to give you a little better beta-glucan,” says Weik.”Nobody really understands the relationship between fertility or nutrients and beta-glucan so that remains somewhat of a mystery, although some varieties inherently have higher beta-glucan.”

Another niche market is being explored by OATDEAL, a company based in Saskatoon, which has developed a gluten-free, oat-based smoothie mix and an oat-based coffee creamer. The products are available in all Co-op retail stores in Western Canada, as well as a number of smaller, specialty stores.

Oats for feed and forage

There has also been a lot of interest in oats for the forage and cattle feed markets. “We’ve had a few varieties out, the most recent one being CDC Haymaker (available through SeCan), which is a forage variety that’s intended to be cut as a forage greenfeed to meet the needs of the dairy industry,” says Dr. Aaron Beattie, a professor and oat breeder at the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre (CDC). “We also have a feed oat variety, CDC Nasser, which is meant to be harvested for its grain but the grain has elevated fat content in comparison to milling oats to provide higher energy content for the cattle industry, and also has a low-lignin hull to make it more easily digested.”

POGA has been leading an initiative — the Horse Healthy Oats Project — to inform and influence U.S.-based horse owners of the role oats can play in their feed rations and the health benefits of feeding oats to their horses. The U.S. equine feed market offers a good premium for growers, but suffered from some bad publicity a few years ago.

“There was a big drop off in the use of oat in equine feed due to a lot of misinformation about oats,” says Beattie. “There was a perception going around at the time that oats were bad for horses, which was a misinterpretation of a study that was done in the U.S. by some veterinarians. POGA has gathered a lot of information, and are doing a lot of education, visiting feed manufacturers and horse owners to explain the actual benefits of oats.” The initiative seeks to help Canadian oat growers recapture more of this market.

POGA is also working to develop new markets for Canadian oats, such as Mexico, the third largest importer of oats globally, and several other Latin American countries. POGA is focusing on increasing consumer awareness in these countries about the health benefits of oats and the high quality of Canadian oats.

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POGA is currently helping to fund 18 research projects, including projects at Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada’s (AAFC) Brandon Research and Development Centre in Manitoba, the Crop Development Centre (CDC) at the University of Saskatchewan and Oat Advantage, a private oat breeding program near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

All of these projects are looking to improve the agronomic performance and marketability of oats. They include efforts by Dr. Jaswinder Singh at McGill University to identify genes responsible for characteristics such as higher beta-glucan and stronger straw.

• Read more: Oat acreage forecast up

Dr. Xiao Qui at the University of Saskatchewan is looking at improving the nutritional and health benefits of oats through projects to identify oat germplasm with higher levels of oleic acid, a healthy fatty acid, and clone the genes responsible for these traits. Dr. Qui is also trying to identify the genes responsible for beta-glucan in oats and develop functional markers for breeders. Another aspect of his research involves increasing the level of avenanthramides, a novel bioactive compound in oats that has strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

“We are making progress towards developing markers to utilize in marker assisted selection in breeding programs,” says Jennifer Mitchell Fetch, an oat breeder at the Brandon Research and Development Centre. “It’ll be very helpful if we can have a marker for certain traits where we can look at them earlier in the life cycle of our varieties.”

Dr. Chris Willenborg at the University of Saskatchewan is working on projects to develop integrated weed management strategies to optimize oat production. “The first thing we are doing is something called ‘many little hammers’ which is combining multiple tactics to manage weeds,” says Willenborg. Those “little hammers” are comprised of three components. First is a five-year crop rotation trial using three different rotations and assessing three different cultural control methods — oat cultivar (comparing short or tall), different seeding rates, and row spacing. The second is looking at different herbicide options. The third is ecological effects.

Although the project has only completed its first year there are some encouraging results. “Even after the first year, we see multiplicative effects between the different cultural methods that we had,” said Willenborg. “We had an interaction between row spacing and seeding rate, so the effects of going from a 40 cm to a 20 cm row resulted in a 0.75-fold reduction in wild oat contamination. At a higher seeding rate of 400 seeds per m² we saw a 1.5-fold reduction in wild oat contamination over a seeding rate of 200 seeds per m². But when we combined both of those factors together, we in fact saw a three-fold reduction.”

Production practices

Willenborg is also leading a project investigating the response of oat yield and quality to different harvesting approaches, including the use of glyphosate as a harvest aid.

Dr. William May is conducting a large cropping sequence trial at the Indian Head Agricultural Research Farm to see if there are particularly beneficial combinations of new and traditional crops. He is also leading a project to evaluate the relationship between test weights and nitrogen fertilization in different oat cultivars.

Other projects are looking at improving resistance in oats to diseases such as crown rust and leaf blotch, and Dr. Linda Hall at the University of Alberta is focusing on enhancing the yield and profitability of oats in central Alberta through variety selection, optimizing nitrogen fertilization and the use of plant growth regulators.

Independent oat breeder Jim Dyck of Oat Advantage in Saskatoon is working with a U.S. researcher to evaluate of winter oats. Dyck says it’s not likely growers will see an oat variety in the near future that could survive Canadian winters, but is hoping that he can introduce some extra cold tolerance into spring oats. “Oats used to be the last crop to be seeded because it was often used for feed. It wasn’t really important so it suffered from bad timing. That’s one of the reasons why I want to try to breed some cold tolerance into oats for people who are seeding oats sooner in their planting schedule,” says Dyck.

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