THE Grain Industry Association of Western Australia (GIWA) Oat Council has released milling accreditation results for two oat varieties, Durack and Kowari from the National Oat Breeding Program SARDI, distributed by Heritage Seeds in WA.

The medium to low rainfall variety Durack has been accredited as Oat 2 only in WA due to nutritional characteristics; the Mitika heritage variety Kowari has been classified as Oat 1, with advice about some limitations for yield potential in the WA oat agronomic regions.

Durack

In a February 2017 commercial milling trial by Quaker Oats on behalf of the GIWA Oat Council, the recently released, short season variety Durack met industry requirements in terms of physical milling characteristics.

However, it did not meet industry standard for nutritional β-glucan content.

Further nutritional testing of Durack from retained seed from previous seasons, and from new season (2017/2018) crop resulted in a number of occasions when the β-glucan content of Durackwas comparable to other Oat1 eligible varieties, but at other times Durack was inferior.

As a result, Durack did not adequately represent the current Oat1 nutritional requirements of the milling oat industry and has been accredited as OAT2 only.

Kowari

In February 2018, a commercial milling evaluation of the recently released oat variety Kowari was undertaken by Quaker Oats on behalf of the GIWA Oat Council.

Kowari met all physical and nutritional specifications in its commercial milling trial, and on that basis has been accepted into OAT1 milling classification in WA.

Based on Kowari’s agronomic performance in research trials it is not expected to compete with high yielding varieties Bannister or Williams. Kowari is a cross between Mitika and a WA breeder’s line.

Source: GIWA

For trial results refer to National Variety Trials and the DPIRD Oat Agronomy Guide 2018.