Huskless Oats

Abstract

So many letters are reaching the National Institute of Agricultural Botany asking for information about huskless oats that Sir Rowland Biffen has prepared a brief account of them. These oats differ from our ordinary varieties in two important respects. The first is that the thin, paper-like husks surrounding the grain do not grip it tightly, with the result that, on threshing, the naked grains are set free just as those of wheat are. The second is that they have some six or seven grains in each spikelet instead of the usual two or three. These grains are loosely strung on a stalk sufficiently long for two or three to protrude and hang down well below the glumes. As the result of this exposure, considerable losses from shattering may be expected in unfavourable harvesting conditions. It is responsible, too, for giving the standing crop the appearance of being very high yielding. But this expectation is not realised on threshing any more than is the expectation that a barley with six rows of grain must out-crop one with two rows only. Most of the huskless oats now in existence come from China, where several distinct forms are in cultivation, but though these have been tried out in many countries during the past half century, their range of cultivation has not increased to any extent. Of late years experimenters have paid a great deal of attention to these Chinese oats. Apparently none of these experimenters, although it is an important part of a plant breeder's work to assess the agricultural value of the material he collects, has seen fit to recommend the general cultivation of huskless oats. One English firm of seedsmen, famous throughout the world for the cereal varieties which it has bred and distributed, has for the past forty years used strains of naked oats for crossing with many varieties of the ordinary cultivated oats. Two years ago the firm abandoned this work, having become convinced that the chances of obtaining any derivative of outstanding agricultural value were negligible.