Comparative economic analysis for production of naked vs. conventional oat

Abstract

The greatest barrier to the use of oat as an animal feed is its high hull content. In spite of its excellent fat and amino acid composition in animal feed use, as far as nutritional value is concerned, the total energy yield of oat is weaker than that of other cereals because of the hulls which have an energy yield like that of straw, so the use and cultivation of oat has remained behind that of plants richer in energy. There are two ways to improve the low energy yield from the cultivation of oat: one is to cultivate naked oat (naked oat, also referred to as hulless oat, describes a variety of oat that with a caryopsis threshes free from maternal lemma and palea under normal mechanical harvest) and the other way is to cultivate high-yielding conventional oat and dehull it mechanically after threshing.The analysis in this paper is based on economic comparisons related to cultivation, dehulling, and crop value. The results show that the main differences in cultivation costs between naked and conventional oat lie in the amount of seeds required and the drying costs. The main differences affecting the economic result lie in market prices, yield level, and feed value. The results indicate that naked oat is financially more profitable than conventional oat, when the crop is sold at a specific price at all yield levels, when the crop is used as feed at the highest yield level. At lower yield levels, conventional oat is, in spite of its lower feed value, the more profitable option for feed use. Dehulled oat, however, did not achieve the same economic result as naked oat at any yield level, as the cost of dehulling, including disposing of the hull waste, was considerable.