Development of High-Vigour Oat Varieties in Australia i

About this book and the author’s oat varieties v

About the author vii

Foreward viii

Preface x

LIST OF FIGURES 3

Executive Summary 5

Acknowledgments 6

Chapter One The importance of oats 8

Introduction 8

Oat grain quality and health 8

Overview 8

Composition of oat grain 10

The significance of oat fibre and human health 10

Cholesterol lowering properties 11

The glycemic effects of oats 12

Prevention of colon cancer 12

Relevance of the oat health factors to agriculture 12

Origin and genetics of oats 14

The oat genome 14

The significance of multigenic traits 16

The economically significant groups of oats 17

Global and economic aspects of the oat crop 17

Overview 17

Global trends in population, food supplies and diets 18

International increases in cereal grain yields 20

Advantages of grazing the oat crop 22

Oat production statistics and limitations to their interpretation 23

Extension of research to oat growers 25

Chapter Two. Australian oat varieties and a germplasm inventory for breeding 29

Introduction 29

Defining objectives in Australian oat breeding 29

The breeding of specialised oats for grain 29

The breeding of dual purpose oat varieties 30

Breeding a triple-purpose oat 31

An oat germplasm inventory 31

Climatic zones for oat breeding and production 34

Overview 34

Summer rainfall zone - Northern NSW and Southern Queensland 34

Winter rainfall zone 50

An Australian oat ideotype 50

Conclusions 50

References 52

Chapter Three. The isolection plant breeding system 54

Introduction 54

The method for selecting high-vigour oat crosses 54

Overview 54

Features of the Isolection breeding method 56

Selection under low-stress conditions 57

Explaining “bulk” varieties 58

Testing for dual-purpose capability in oat varieties 58

Testing of high-vigour lines and varieties 61

Competing crop trials 77

Recommendations for extension 86

Conclusions 87

References 88

Chapter four. breeding oats for irrigation in Australia 90

Introduction 90

Australian research on irrigated oats and forage production 90

Testing of high-vigour varieties 91

Recommendations for oat breeding programs 93

Conclusions 95

References 96

Chapter Five. The influence of environment on oat grain quality 97

Introduction 97

Testing of high-vigour varieties 97

Testing environments 97

Methods used 97

Trial results 97

Recommnedations for extension 98

Conclusions 105

References 105

Chapter Six. Plant breeding methods and technologies for increasing oat crop yields 106

Introduction 106

GM plant breeding technology 106

Overview 106

Description of GM technology 107

The importance of limiting gene transfers into wild populations 107

Conventional crop plant breeding 107

Traditional landrace cropping 107

Conventional Mendelian plant breeding 108

Isolection Mendelian plant breeding (Isolection Method) 109

Comparing GM with conventional crops 110

Important challenges from gm crop technology 112

Conclusions 113

References 114

Glossary 114

Appendix A. Australian Oat Statistics 126

Appendix B. Plots From A Heavy Grazing Trial (Richmond, NSW 1966) 128

Copyright © Patrick Martin Guerin 2006

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of study, research, criticism, review, or as otherwise permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication
Development of High-Vigour Oat Varieties in Australia
Patrick Martin Guerin