Harnessing new technologies for sustainable oat production and utilisation

燕麦是谷物轮作中的一种有价值的中间作物，是一种比小麦低投入的作物，在边缘地区表现良好，是一种高价值的饲料，在以草地为基础的轮作中生长良好。然而，需要改进关键性状，以增加燕麦的产量和利用率，同时通过减少农业投入来减缓气候和环境变化。研究还需要预测市场的变化，因为消费者转向更健康的饮食，燕麦是其中的关键组成部分。与来自碾磨和畜牧部门的最终用户群体以及加工者（该项目的所有关键合作伙伴）进行的讨论确定了遗传改良可以对燕麦作物进行量化改进的优先领域。已经测试了标记发现的各种方法，并且已经建立了高密度燕麦图谱，但是已经清楚的是，在栽培燕麦中存在相对较少的多态性，因此迫切需要最大限度地利用可用的多态性，并且如果植物育种者要有效地利用非UK适应种质，则能够精确地选择新的多态性。该项目将通过开发和应用最先进的基因组学和代谢组学工具来解决这些问题，以进行有针对性的燕麦遗传改良。重点是对关键性状的理解和操纵，这些性状将提高燕麦在改善人类健康方面的价值，实现燕麦作为高价值动物饲料的潜力，并通过先进的分馏开发使用燕麦的新机会。这样做还将提高基于谷物的轮作的环境和经济可持续性，并利用燕麦作为低投入谷物的价值。用于识别特定基因和标记的强大使能技术将推动育种者友好型工具的开发，加速生产将由工业合作伙伴销售的改良燕麦品种。这是一个多学科的项目，它结合了基因组学研究人员，燕麦育种者和最终用户的专业知识，现代表型分析方法，这也将通过开发实验种群来解决长期育种目标，这些实验种群对农艺学重要性状具有多态性，但比传统的农艺学品系更适合作图和正向遗传方法。燕麦的各种最终用户（食品、饲料和工业用途）参与新燕麦品系的评估，将有助于将这项研究转移到燕麦育种计划中，并提供具有工业所需特性的燕麦品种，并为可持续生产系统带来环境效益。

Oats are a valuable break crop in cereal rotations, a lower input crop than wheat, perform well in marginal areas and are a high value feed that grows well in grassland based rotations. Nevertheless there is a need to improve key traits that will increase the production and utilisation of oats whilst also mitigating climate and environmental change via reduced agricultural inputs. Research also needs to anticipate changes in the market as consumers shift towards healthier diets of which oats are a key component. Discussions with end-user groups from the milling and livestock sectors, as well as processors, all key partners in this project, have identified the priority areas where genetic improvement can make quantifiable improvements to the oat crop. Various approaches to marker discovery have been tested and high density oat maps have been established however it has become clear that there is relatively little polymorphism in cultivated oats and therefore an urgent need to maximise the use of available polymorphism and be able to select precisely for novel polymorphisms from non-UK adapted germplasm if it is to be used effectively by plant breeders. This project will address these issues by developing and applying state-of-the-art genomic and metabolomic tools for targeted oat genetic improvement. The focus is on the understanding and manipulation of key traits that will enhance the value of oats in human health improvement, realise the potential of oats as a high value animal feed and develop new opportunities for using oats through advanced fractionation. In so doing it will also increase the environmental and economic sustainability of cereal based rotations and capitalise on the value of oats as a low input cereal. Powerful enabling technologies for the identification of specific genes and markers will drive the development of breeder -friendly tools accelerating the production of improved oat varieties that will be marketed by industrial partners. This is a multi-disciplinary project which combines modern phenotyping methodologies with the expertise of genomics researchers, oat breeders and end-users, which will also address long term breeding goals by developing experimental populations which are polymorphic for agronomically important traits but more amenable to mapping and forward genetic approaches than conventional agronomic lines. Involvement of the various end-users of oats (food, feed and industrial uses) in the evaluation of novel oat lines will facilitate the transfer of this research into oat breeding programmes and deliver oat varieties with the characteristics that industry requires and deliver environmental benefits to sustainable production systems.