CFCRA Cropping Systems Cluster: Activity 6 – Climate-smart trait development in oat germplasm for Canada

Objectives:

• To sustainably increase the productivity of oat for Canada, incorporating climate resilience, while maintaining consistent milling quality, disease resistance, and superior agronomic performance.
• To enhance resilience to crown and stem rust by incorporating durable resistance into elite varieties.
• To reduce the environmental impacts of oat production by leveraging genomics-assisted breeding approaches to incorporate climate-smart oat traits for Canada.

Impacts:

• The primary output of this project will be new climate-resilient, high-yielding, high-quality, and disease-resistant oat varieties that will be attractive to producers and industry. These varieties will be adopted by producers and grown on a significant portion of the ~3 million acres sown to oat annually in Canada, benefitting the Canadian agri-food economy, and ensuring oat maintains its role in a diverse and sustainable crop rotation in Canada.
• Improving yield and agronomic performance will increase profitability for farmers. Maintaining and adapting end-use quality traits based on the needs of the industry will ensure the marketability of the grain and have economic benefits across the value chain.
• Incorporating durable disease resistance into new varieties will reduce economic losses caused by pathogens, reduce dependence on chemical fungicides, and provide flexibility in risk management for farmers.
• Incorporating genomics-assisted trait development will create efficiencies in the pipeline, allowing for faster response to farmers’ and industry needs.

Scientific Summary:

Oat is an important crop in Canada used for both human and animal consumption. Over the last five years, total Canadian oat production averaged 3.5 million tonnes, with western Canada accounting for 90% of total production. In eastern Canada, oat is a multi-purpose small-grain crop grown for grain, straw, forage, and/or land cover. This includes c. 130 Kha for grain. As the Quaker/PepsiCo plant in Peterborough, ON purchases oat grain from eastern Canada and supplies oat-based food across Canada and a large area of the eastern USA, the economic importance of oat grain production in the region is greater than its acreage suggests. About the same acreage of oat is also grown as “mixed grain” for use as feed. Oat straw is also a valuable product, used as hay or for premium bedding. In Ontario, oat is widely grown as a cover crop following the harvest of winter wheat. The cover crop is used as forage or to prevent soil erosion, increase soil fertility, reduce underground water contamination, and contribute to carbon sequestration. Moreover, oat is a key component in the crop rotation system to break the buildup of insects and pathogens in the soil. Thus, oat is an important crop in eastern Canada both economically and environmentally and developing high yielding oat cultivars is a real-time approach to cope with, and adapt to, the ever-changing climate.

Use of disease-resistant cultivars to reduce the use of fungicide also has dual benefits: economic and environmental. Canada is the world’s leading exporter of oat, with around 30% of grain exported annually to top buyers, including the US, Mexico, Chile, Japan, and Peru. Oat is important to our domestic economy with strong and growing demand for high-quality milling oat. Canada is well-positioned to capitalize on market opportunities such as the continued growth of the breakfast cereal market, exponentially rising demand for oat in China, the expanding interest in plant-based protein, and the recent popularity of oat beverage products, a global market currently valued at over USD 2 billion. As the oat industry evolves, continued and focused trait development efforts are needed. These efforts will help adapt to the sector’s requirements by incorporating new traits into varieties to drive economic growth across the value chain.

The oat growing regions in Canada consist of three contrasting mega-environments (MEs): ME1 consists of Areas 2 and 3 of Ontario, with an acreage of c. 30 Kha (for pure oat grain), characterized by relatively low latitudes and heavy crown rust pressure. ME2 consists of Quebec, the Maritimes, and northern Ontario, with an acreage of c. 100 Kha (pure oat grain). ME3 consists of the western Canadian prairies.

This project supports the national oat breeding program at the Brandon and Ottawa Research and Development Centres (BRDC and ORDC) with a mandate to develop new and improved oat varieties for each of the three MEs in Canada.

External Funding Partners:

This activity was funded in part by the Government of Canada under the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership’s AgriScience Program, with industry support from the Canadian Field Crop Research Alliance (CFCRA) whose members include: Atlantic Grains Council; Producteurs de grains du Quebec; Grain Farmers of Ontario; Manitoba Corn Growers Association; Manitoba Pulse & Soybean Growers; Saskatchewan Pulse Growers; Prairie Oat Growers Association; SeCan; and FP Genetics.