Genotype and Environment Affect the Grain Quality and Yield of Winter Oats (Avena sativa L.).

Catherine J Howarth,Pilar M J Martinez-Martin,Alexander A Cowan,Irene M Griffiths,Ruth Sanderson,Sarah Clarke,Tim Langdon,Susan J Lister,Athole H Marshall,Nick Fradgley

doi:10.3390/foods10102356

Abstract

The extent to which the quality and yield of plant varieties are influenced by the environment is important for their successful uptake by end users particularly as climatic fluctuations are resulting in environments that are highly variable from one growing season to another. The genotype-by-environment interaction (GEI) of milling quality and yield was studied using four winter oat varieties in multi-locational trials over 4 years in the U.K. Significant differences across the 22 environments were found between physical grain quality and composition as well as grain yield, with the environment having a significant effect on all of the traits measured. Grain yield was closely related to grain number m−2 whereas milling quality traits were related to grain size attributes. Considerable genotype by environment interaction was obtained for all grain quality traits and stability analysis revealed that the variety Mascani was the least sensitive to the environment for all milling quality traits measured whereas the variety Balado was the most sensitive. Examination of environmental conditions at specific within-year stages of crop development indicated that both temperature and rainfall during grain development were correlated with grain yield and β-glucan content and with the ease of removing the hull (hullability).

Highlights

Oats (Avena sativa L.) are a high quality cereal, currently experiencing resurgence in its use for human consumption [1], due to the recognized health benefits attributed to the nutritional qualities of the oat grain [2,3]
The present paper reports a study of the grain quality, grain composition grain yield of four commercially available winter oat varieties grown in 9 locations over 4 harvest years, enabling the genotype-by-environment interaction (GEI) to be quantified and the stability of the four oat varieties over different environments to be analyzed
Environmental conditions during grain development resulted in significant variation for all traits with significant GEI for groat content, hullability, thousand grain weight, grain width and oil content

Summary

Introduction

Oats (Avena sativa L.) are a high quality cereal, currently experiencing resurgence in its use for human consumption [1], due to the recognized health benefits attributed to the nutritional qualities of the oat grain [2,3]. Dietary benefits associated with phytochemicals within the oat grain, such as β-glucan, and approved health claims for oat β-glucan has contributed to the increased interest in oats as a food ingredient and led to incorporation into an increasing number of food products [4]. Grain quality and yield determine much of the value of an oat crop to the producer with several grain characteristics routinely used to define milling quality [6]. Hectoliter weight (often referred to as specific weight or test weight) is a measure of grain density and regarded as a poor indicator of milling quality [8] is still routinely used in analyzing oat crops ex farm. Groat content and ease of hull removal (hullability) are the most important traits for milling quality as groat content is the characteristic most closely associated with the millers extract yield of product [7,8]

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Conclusion