Oat Varieties for Western Washington

Cascadia Grains 2014Louisa Winkler

WSU Mount Vernon Oat Program

•Oat variety testing

•Breeding work

•End-use development

Map of Washington State, by Bouchirron (Wikimedia Commons)

Goals for variety testing and development:

• High yield; lodging resistance; disease resistance

• Performance in organic and low-input systems

• Winter-hardiness• Milling quality, nutritional value

•Hulled and Hulless•Spring and Winter•Old and modern•Bringing in germplasm from around the world•Researching end-uses including poultry feed (with Wilcox Family Farms), milling (with Grain Millers Inc.) and forage.

Egg production at Wilcox Family Farm, Roy, WA

Local oatmeal at Camas Country Mills, OR

Commercial variety test

- 50 hulled varieties

- Replicated plot trials in 4 locations spanning the region

- In-field and postharvest tests on milling industry parameters

Hulled oat entriesFrom 9 different breeding programmes across North America and overseas

06-5465 Furlong L-5 NZA733/01 SourisAC Lu HiFi Leggett Ogle Spurs

AC MorganHorsepower Lincoln Pinnacle Stainless

Baker Jay ML oat Proleaf 234 StrideBuckskin Jim Monida Robust SummitCayuse Jordan Newburg Rockford TackChaps Jury NZA228/17 Rodeo UC113Don Kaufmann NZA29/09 Ronald UC125Esker Killdeer NZA292,06 Saber Viking

Excel KonaNZA293,111

Shootingstar Wombat

Nursery locations

Map of Washington State counties (U.S. Census Bureau)

Map of Washington State counties

(U.S. Census Bureau)

TeVelde’s Farm, Whatcom County

Bishops Farm, Island County

WSU Mount Vernon, Skagit County

Kirsop Farms, Thurston County

Above: Bishops, 5/14; Below:TeVelde, 6/19

Above: Kirsop, 7/26; Below: WSU M.Vernon, 7/3

Above: Bishops, 8/6; Below:TeVelde, 8/8

Above: Kirsop, 9/9; Below: WSU M.Vernon, 8/27

Results from 2014Yield

LodgingTest Weight

Heading dateGrain quality

Results from 2014YieldRange (plot level): 261lb/a - 9,349 lb/a. Oat bushel weight is 32lb.Data from Bishops, NWREC and Kirsop:

Entry

Average Yield, lb/a

All-site rank CV, %

Kaufmann 6059 1 12%AC Lu 5816 2 9%Horsepower 5307 3 15%Stride 5012 7 10%Proleaf234 4978 10 7%Chaps 4884 13 8%Tack 4822 16 12%Rockford 4248 34 17%Lincoln 3853 45 18%Cayuse 3631 49 28%

Results from 2014Yield

•Rankings changed at each site.•Only AC Lu, Kaufmann and Stride were in the top 15 at all three locations.•AC Morgan, Summit, UC 125 and Pinnacle were in the top 15 at both NWREC and Kirsop.•High average yield, low CV: Esker, Chaps, Proleaf 234, Stride, AC Lu.•Cayuse was consistently near the bottom at each location.

Results from 2014Lodging

•Lodging was problematic at three out of four locations.•Entries with especially high lodging resistance across sites were 06-5465, NZA 733/01, Spurs, UC 125 and Shootingstar – unfortunately none of the highest yielders!•Horsepower, Summit and Proleaf 234 emerged as high yielders with reasonable lodging resistance.•Entries with low lodging resistance included Kaufmann, Jim and Newburg.•Lincoln, Newburg, Jury, Kaufmann, Pinnacle and Stride can become extremely tall (over 61in) and are probably best avoided in areas with high probability of summer rainfall.

Results from 2014Test WeightRange (plot-level): 28lb/bu - 46lb/buMilling industry minimum standard is 40lb/buData from Bishops, NWREC and Kirsop:

Entry

Average test

weight, lb/bu

All-site rank C.V.

Tack 42.9 1 2%Spurs 42.7 2 3%Robust 41.7 6 4%Horsepower 41.7 7 4%Kaufmann 41.3 8 2%Lincoln 39.2 30 4%UC125 39.1 31 2%Proleaf234 38.0 41 3%Shootingstar 34.0 50 8%

Results from 2014Test Weight

•Entries exceeding milling minimum at all three locations were Robust, Spurs and Tack.•Many varieties exceeded the minimum at two out of three locations.•Some varieties did not reach the minimum at any location, including Shootingstar and Proleaf 234.

Results from 2014Heading dateRange: 161 – 184 days to heading

•There were some really late varieties: L-5, NZA 228/17, Jordan and Shootingstar.•Early varieties did not necessarily yield less. They included Tack and Horsepower.

Results from 2014Grain quality

Results from 2014Milling tests are now underway to determine•Plumps and thins•Kernel content (% hull)•Nutritional value (protein, oil, beta glucan)

Conclusion:•There are always trade-offs. Information about your farm and climate can point to what your biggest risks are and guide variety choice.•With the right choice of variety, Western Washington oats should be able to easily surpass 5,000lb/a and meet milling standards for test weight.

Please help yourself to the variety trial results papers, or see them online at the WSU Mount Vernon webpage:http://plantbreeding.wsu.edu/varietyTrialsWesternWA.html

Thank you for your attention!This work is supported by a fellowship from the Clif Bar Family Foundation’s Seed Matters Initiative and by Wilcox Family Farms.With grateful thanks to host farmers Clark Bishop, Kevin TeVelde and Colin Bradshaw.http://plantbreeding.wsu.edu/varietyTrialsWesternWA.htmlLouisa.winkler@wsu.edu