... your place for oat information.

That applies to the season here in Canada, but also to the members of the committees (including the Oat Newsletter committee) overseen by the American Oat Workers (AOW) group! The 2024 American Oat Workers' Conference (AOWC) was held in Saskatoon, SK, Canada, in July, and there is a lot of information to share. First, though, I will let you know that I was re-elected Editor of the Oat Newsletter for another four years.

…and “nothing so gentle as real strength”. Those words, from St. Francis de Sales, could certainly be used to describe Howard Rines, who passed away after a long illness on May 23rd. Howard is another of those people I met through being a part of the Quaker Oats Consortium in the 1990’s. He was a lovely man, and an excellent scientist. He will be sorely missed by many.

It's back! We're resurrecting the “Speaking of Oats...” (“SOO...”) webinar series this month. Duong Nguyen, from CSIRO, will speak to us about “Leveraging molecular tools and data integration to solve the oat crown rust puzzle” on May 15th at 4:30 pm (16:30) EDT (UTC-4). The time is unusual because Duong is in Adelaide, Australia. Registration is now open! Check the time offset for your location here.

Well, I failed the challenge of posting part 2 of this update a week after I posted part 1, but the upside is that you get lots of other information sooner!

As Oat Newsletter editor, I collect information from multiple sources and disseminate it to the community primarily through Oat Newsletter updates/emails, OatMail, and ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter). The biggest challenge for me comes in how to package that information and get it out to you in a timely manner. As the old saying goes, “it never rains, it pours”, and so this update is in two parts!

This is the beginning of a new year, and there’s a new volume of "Research Reports" for 2024 – number 61. Four articles have already been added to this volume.

Happy 2024, everyone!

Let’s start the year off with some job opportunities:

Today (November 15th) is International Whole Grain Day, and, in Australia, they’ve dedicated the whole week to whole grains! Oats are, of course, generally consumed as whole grain, and the most popular form is still porridge. Alan Meikle, from Hamlyn’s of Scotland, talks all about porridge in this podcast.

As we used to sing at summer camp, "Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold." This update begins with two pieces of sad news. First, Romulo Trombetta passed away from brain cancer in May. He was based in Argentina, and worked as an agronomist for the Quaker Oats Company in South America. Romulo was a big part of the Quaker Oats South American Oat Improvement Project for many years.

The dates for the next American Oat Workers' Conference (AOWC) have been announced! The meeting, hosted by oat breeder Aaron Beattie from the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan, will be held from 21-24 July, 2024, in Saskatoon, SK, Canada.