ROOKINGS, S.D. – South Dakota livestock producers soon will have access to two new oat varieties.
After several years of research, the South Dakota State University Agricultural Experiment Station recently released oat cultivar, Horsepower and a new multi-purpose oat variety, Goliath.
“These two oat varieties provide South Dakota producers with some great options. Horsepower has exceptional yield potential and the best straw strength out there. Goliath is a multi-purpose oat that can be used for grain production, forage or straw,” said Lon Hall, SDSU oat breeder.
Hall works with about 500 unique hybridizations, 300 populations, 30,000 mass-selected plants and 2,000 derived lines each year as he develops oat cultivars that will excel in South Dakota’s growing conditions.
“Plant breeding is a process of elimination. It’s not about picking the best ones. It’s about throwing out the worst ones until you’re left with the best one,” Hall said.
This process takes time. Hall said Horsepower and Goliath were at least 10 years in the making. Once populations and derived lines are increased in the greenhouse cycles, they then are put to the test in fields across the state. Horsepower passed both tests. Hall is eager to get the variety into the hands of South Dakota’s oat growers.
SDSU has one of only a few oat breeding programs in the nation, making the work Hall focuses on each day extremely valuable to the state’s forage producers, said Daniel Scholl, director of the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station and associate dean of research for the College of Agriculture and Biological Sciences.
Scholl said public breeding programs are one of the mainstays of South Dakota’s agriculture experiment station. Unlike the commercial research and development poured into commodities such as corn and soybeans, he said there are no private or commercial breeding programs that focus on oats. And there are no checkoff dollars assigned to oat research and development.
“Future improvements in oat cultivars are entirely dependent upon programs found at land grant universities like SDSU,” Scholl said.
Before Horsepower and Goliath could be released, a variety release committee at SDSU scrutinized its performance. Upon its recommendation, Scholl approved their release.
The varieties have been released into the South Dakota Crop Improvement Association seed certification program and currently are in the foundation seed increase program. Horsepower ultimately will be made available as certified seed through the efforts of the crop improvement association for the 2013 growing season.
Scholl said Horsepower’s release is a perfect example of how synergy among the university, SDSU Extension and the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station affects the future of the state’s agriculture industry.
“We are a public research organization here to serve the interests of agriculture and the food-consuming public,” Scholl said. “The value of having an oat breeding program in our state is the fact that the cultivars developed here are adapted specifically to the growing conditions here in South Dakota.”
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