ISSUE 76, OATS, Part 3: Naked Oats
Naked Oats {peelcorn, pilcorn)
One strain of oats indigenous to western China—the dry mountainous lands that verge on Tibet—has the distinction of bearing grain without protective awns (spikes) and hulls that permit the easy extraction of the grain. The seed is not firmly enveloped in its chaffy husk so that the grain falls naked from the head like wheat. All other strains of oat require extraction from the hull for culinary purposes. For all intents and purposes, it is a grain requiring little processing, unlike the other familiar oat varieties which demand effort in separating grain from husk.
Known to Europe for some centuries, Avena nuda had been grown as a small scale crop. A strain was known in Britain in the 16th century and appear’s in Gerhard’s famous 1597 Herbal. The naked oat’s convenience in processing was overbalanced by liabilities in field performance—lack of productivity, vulnerability to disease—particularly smut and rust, and sensitivity to heat—so it remained a marginal crop until USDA plant hunters and Canadian agronomists began collecting and breeding new strains derived from the plant’s homeland. It is doubtful that the landrace strain brought from England to the American colonies—“Bohemian Oats”-- survives. All cultivated strains of the oat now derive from lines brought to North America within the past 130 years.
One reason that the old hull-less oat landrace was not the basis for 20th century breeding of Avena nuda was because of the Bohemian Oat Swindle of 1889. A slick group of con men from Michigan sent salesmen through New York and other eastern states selling seed oats of the “fantastic new variety.” The swindle included a buy-back scheme and passing on oat contracts to local banks at a discount. No proceeds, no buy back, indeed no oat seed in some cases. The phrase “Bohemian Oats” became a stench in the grain market. So much for the reputation of the traditional hull-less oat.
One quality of Avena nuda has kept plant breeders assiduously seeking new forms of it and working at the grain’s improvement—its extraordinary nutrition profile. Bearing 18% protein, it exceeds all other grains and all other version of the oat in this regard—the Virginia grey winter turf oat coming in 2nd at 17%. Livestock operations have keep this grain’s forage potential in view, and have beent he most avid supporters of the efforts of the Canadian and upper Midwestern breeders who now dominate shaping the plant’s genetics.
Yet the story of livestock is one that has shaped the general decline in demand for oats. As combines and tractors have supplanted draft horses on the farm, the most intensive traditional consumer of oats has disappeared on the agricultural landscape. The hulled oats that historically dominated the feed for horses diminishes the amount of nutrition in the grain once it is dehulled for consumption by cattle and other animals. Hulled oats do not provide sufficient nutriment to milk cows. Naked oats, however, do not suffer this liability. Hence and interest since the 1990s in breeding oats with greater field performance, disease resistance, and consistency of production, suited to the conditions of the upper mid-west and Canada. What’s the market—race horses and other performance animals.