Harnessing new technologies for sustainable oat production and utilisation (QUOATS)

Abstract

Oats are recognised as a valuable break crop in cereal rotations; nevertheless, there is a need to improve key traits that will increase the production and utilisation of oats whilst also mitigating climate and environmental change via reduced agricultural inputs. This project aimed to address these issues by developing and applying state-of-the-art genomic and metabolomic tools for targeted oat genetic improvement of key traits that will enhance the value of oats in human health improvement, realise the potential of oats as a high value animal feed and develop new opportunities for using oats through advanced fractionation.

This multi-disciplinary project combined modern phenotyping methodologies with the expertise of genomics researchers, oat breeders and end-users. Involvement of the various end-users of oats (food, feed and industrial uses) in the evaluation of novel oat lines was designed to facilitate the transfer of this research into oat breeding programmes and deliver oat varieties with the characteristics that industry requires and deliver environmental benefits to sustainable production systems.