floricole
gardener
39 acres, half wooded half arable, land of alluvial
Posts: 108
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Post by floricole on Sept 28, 2012 22:28:38 GMT -5
Canadian Naked Oats or the Rice of the Prairies This is the first variety of oat in the world that bears grain completely naked (without shells or eyelashes) food choice for people who suffer from gluten intolerance and food for race horses, pigs and poultry. The innovative “naked oat” variety, or Agriculture Canada Gehl, is the first bald-seeded hulless oat to offer a wide range of benefits to producers, processors and consumers alike. Developed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), “the naked oat” represents a new class of hulless oat as the seed is almost free of surface-borne hairs. Previously developed hulless varieties were still covered with fine hair (trichomes), which represented a major health challenge to growers and processors for harvesting, handling and processing of the grain. This new variety is the result of more than 15 years of intensive research and breeding by Dr. Vern Burrows.
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Post by ferdzy on Sept 29, 2012 15:27:34 GMT -5
I've seen these at Bulk Barn. I should try them out.
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Post by raymondo on Sept 29, 2012 18:26:43 GMT -5
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Post by 12540dumont on Sept 29, 2012 18:39:54 GMT -5
Hey Ferdzy, if you get some, send some along to me.
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Post by kwilds on Sept 29, 2012 21:52:49 GMT -5
I grew some "rice of the prairies" from Bulk Barn this year. I also grew another variety of naked oat. Both produced well and were relatively easy to thresh. I haven't finished cleaning the grain yet but I can't wait to try some for breakfast when I do get around to cleaning it! I do have a small amount of seed I can share if someone wants it . . .
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floricole
gardener
39 acres, half wooded half arable, land of alluvial
Posts: 108
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Post by floricole on Sept 30, 2012 12:28:04 GMT -5
sorry I didn't saw this thread
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Post by ferdzy on Sept 30, 2012 14:40:19 GMT -5
Holly, next time I am in Bulk Barn I will certainly think of you! (And try some myself while I am at it.)
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Post by MikeH on Sept 30, 2012 19:05:43 GMT -5
I had a devil of a time getting germination and finally gave up. I suspect that the grains are coated to inhibit sprouting. I'll have a go again next year but wash and maybe even soak them overnight. I'm also thinking of sprouting them first. Maybe the first year is just growing them out in order to get seed that will germinate normally.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Sept 30, 2012 19:46:46 GMT -5
I've tried Terra Hulless and was deeply underwhelmed. Possibly it was affected by our droughty conditions.
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Post by 12540dumont on Oct 1, 2012 0:43:54 GMT -5
I did the naked oats from Southern Exposure and they did well. I still haven't threshed them. I did a bunch of ancient wheats last year which all did well. This year I'm working on Emmer over the winter. I have to get in the favas and the garlic and the onions and October is here! I do want to say that the flax and millet from Adaptive Seeds was very productive in my garden. Atash's sorghum is still plugging along. I've some Hungarian Wheat from Oxbow that I want to play with as well. Sylvia from Solstice Seeds sent me some Vermont Read 1898 Wheat that I'm anxious to plant as well along with some Spelt. I received Perennial Wheat from 3 sources so, I'm going to tray those up and transplant them. I'm just trying to figure out where they won't accidentally get tilled. Luckily here, no one plants winter grains until November. Ye hah, a whole month away!
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Post by MikeH on Dec 24, 2012 10:54:41 GMT -5
I had a devil of a time getting germination and finally gave up. I suspect that the grains are coated to inhibit sprouting. I'll have a go again next year but wash and maybe even soak them overnight. I'm also thinking of sprouting them first. Maybe the first year is just growing them out in order to get seed that will germinate normally. I just did a germination test. Out of 85 seeds, I got 26 to germinate in a petrie dish. I've got them in seedling trays just to see how much bulk the roots will put on. This is a slightly tedious approach but it should give me enough seedlings to plant out to produce seeds in 2013 for a serious planting in 2014. And I'll now when to start them in the spring for a June 1 planting date. Pictures here.
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Post by ottawagardener on Dec 24, 2012 12:26:47 GMT -5
MikeH: I have a small bag left of some from a local farmer. Not sure of the germination as I interplanted peas with them and didn't pay attention. It wasn't that high but you are welcome to what I have left.
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Post by MikeH on Dec 24, 2012 17:47:05 GMT -5
Wow. The local farmer is growing Cavena Nuda aka AC Gehl? The Gehl naming is interesting. He named it AC Gehl after Dave Gehl, who runs the federal research farm at Indian Head, Sask. A flattered Gehl said Burrows didn’t have access to technical support for his breeding work because he had retired. Burrows sent Gehl a sample of his oats in the fall of 2000 and asked him to send it to New Zealand for increasing.
Then he asked Gehl to grow some of the crop, which he did for three years in co-operation with growers.
“I helped him when he had no other source,” Gehl said. “I think he appreciated that.”
Burrows’ work with oats was designed to make the crop more useful and eliminate some of the problems experienced by growers and processors.
“Hulless oats were not the favourite crop for my staff because they’re very unpleasant to work with,” Gehl said.
The little hairs on the groats cause irritated and itchy skin and respiratory congestion. They were also a challenge to thresh.
Fatuoids, which are mutants sometimes called false wild oats, cause shattering in standard oats.
“That’s why our standard oats, we are really averse to having awns or fatuoids in them,” he said.
But hulless oats are different.
“He took an awn from a wild oat and he put it onto the hulless oat and it behaved quite differently than in a standard oat,” Gehl said.
“They didn’t shatter and the awn made them very free threshing. This stuff threshes like wheat.”
Previous varieties could not be threshed hard because the soft groat could break.
Getting the hairs off the groat took years of breeding, but Gehl said Burrows is persistent.
“He bucked the system. Everybody told him you’re kind of flogging a dead horse here because hulless oats didn’t have a very high reputation. I think he really made quite spectacular progress in eliminating the major problems with that crop.”
Thanks but I'm OK with what I'm working with. There's actually a fair bit of seed starting to be available. Bulk Barn is now carrying it so it's moving out beyond the health food stores.
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Post by richardw on Dec 26, 2012 12:26:33 GMT -5
Burrows sent Gehl a sample of his oats in the fall of 2000 and asked him to send it to New Zealand for increasing. I wonder who grew it here Mike,there's bound to be someone still growing it
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Post by MikeH on Dec 26, 2012 12:35:34 GMT -5
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