Kudos to Carolyn Ali at straight.com — “Vancouver’s online source” — for a fluffy and under-researched story that led me to something of real interest. Ms Ali reported breathlessly on “a new — and naked — oat”. But of course there is nothing new about naked oats. They lack the hull that surrounds the grains of ordinary oats. That makes them a lot easier to thresh, and they were recorded in England in the middle of the 16th century, where they were known as “peelcorn” and “skinless oats”. So not really novel. And not rare either. Luigi rapidly found me hundreds of accessions in genebanks around the world.
I was going to leave it at that, a pained someone-is-wrong-on-the-internets or a smug why-are-modern-“journalists”-too-lazy-to-do-basic-research diatribe. Ms Ali’s piece is essentially a puff for Manitoba farmer Scott Sigvaldason, who grows the stuff and cannily registered the name Cavena nuda (geddit?). ((Oats are Avena sativa. Naked oats are usually A. nuda, sometimes A. sativa var. nuda. Cavena for Canada, the country that brought you Canola, because rape is way too inflammatory a name.)) But looking at Naked Oats, a paper by T.R. Stanton in the Journal of Heredity (vol 14, 1923), I learned about more than the antiquity of naked oats.
I learned also that in every trial to date, naked oats had performed very poorly indeed in comparison to their clothed brethren, which gave three, four, even six times more grain. Yield, of course, isn’t everything. Unfortunately, naked oats are more susceptible to smut and rust than other oats, and deteriorate very quickly in storage, which also affects their viability as seed. They do, however, possess one very valuable quality: each spikelet contains several flowers, which produce 4 to 12 grains per spikelet, compared to two in normal oats. Several breeders (prior to 1923) had tried to insert this characteristic into normal oats, without success. Stanton concludes:
[S]uch a variety is impossible. [Researchers] have shown that the many-flowered spikelet and naked kernel or membraneous palea are linked. For this reason the number of flowers is reduced in all plants which breed true for adherent palea (hulled condition). According to Capron, a biflorous naked form is possible, but from the practical aspect is not desirable. On the other hand, a multiflorous hulled form is very desirable, but seems impossible genetically.
Ali’s article cites Vernon Burrows (“Dr Oats” according to some sources) as the breeder who created Cavena nuda, aka AC Gehl. Had he achieved the impossible? It doesn’t matter, because we’re talking about naked oats. It is rust resistant, which is good. Of greater interest, to me, is that the protein of at least some of the newer naked oat varieties is of rather good quality, so much so that Campbell’s created a new kind of soup, called Nourish, based on naked oats. Campbell’s further offered to give 100,000 cans of Nourish to Food Bank Canada. The soup is touted as:
[A] complete meal, delivering iron, calcium and a full serving of vegetables, fibre and at least 18 g of protein. The first-of-its-kind product was developed to address the problem of hunger both in Canada and internationally, as well as to be a reliable food source for people impacted by disaster situations abroad.
Campbell Soup Company is keen to “push hunger into a smaller box” (see for yourself) and is giving Canadians a chance to help the World Food Programme by donating $0.25 — the price of a school meal — to WFP for every can a Canadian buys. So I’m feeling really bad about my initial instinct to trash Carolyn Ali’s story just because it was a bit wrong.
And I’ll bet T.R. Stanton would be feeling bad too, for being so negative about naked oats.
During the past fifty years naked oats have been advertised several times as a valuable new variety, with extravagant claims as to their yielding power and usefulness as compared with common oats. The purchaser in every case was “gold bricked” and became the unfortunate victim of the clever advertising of the promoter.
Stanton goes on to talk about the Bohemian oats scandals.
In the decade from 1870 to 1880, naked oats, under the name of Bohemian oats, were for the first time widely exploited in this country. They were known prior to this, but apparently had been given no serious consideration, especially [sic. huh?] as a plant novelty that would lend itself readily to spurious exploitation. During the period of the Bohemian oat scandal the seed was sold for as much as fifty cents a pound. The Bohemian oats were rather widely distributed, but farmers discovered that they were greatly inferior to ordinary oats and soon they had almost entirely disappeared from cultivation. However, sporadic exploitation of naked oats under other names has occurred up to the present day.
The Bohemian oats scandal is an absolutely beautiful con, beautifully explained by Laura Bien at Ypsinews.com. It could never happen again.
Could it?
Luigi: Your post raises a question that I have pondered. Does the nakedness of oats contribute to their value as fodder for horses? The horse was a huge boon to agriculture and to the growth of modern economies, as you know. In England, increasing land was devoted to oats as fodder as the number of horses grew with the economy after C16. Why not feed horses other grains?
Thanks, Don
The naked oat cultivar ‘AC Gehl’ has also no hairs on the caryopsis. This makes another difference.
The name Avena nuda L. refers to the small naked oat, a diploid species, while the naked oat talked about in this article is hexaploid and should rather be called Avena sativa subsp. nudisativa (with quotation of the authorities it will be: Avena sativa L. subsp. nudisativa (Husnot.) Rod. et Sold.). (Reference: Kobylyansky V.D. and Soldatov V.N. 1994. Flora of cultivated plants, vol. 2 part 3, Oat. Kolos, Moscow).
I will take the bait. I am the farmer that is being called a con artist by this blog. Carolyn Ali is not the under researched reporter I’m afraid, it is this blogger.
I know its shocking to some people that there may have been some advances in breeding oats since the “middle of the 16th century”, but there are more than a few advances in the last several hundred years.
I have been growing this new type of naked oat since 2005 and we have years of data from sites all over Manitoba from third party researchers to back up the statements I make. As a farmer I grew the older type of naked oats, and yes they are not a new thing, it seems they may have come out of China around 1000 years ago as an offshoot of the traditional oats. I know the disadvantages of the older type of naked oats, they are nutritionally superior to traditional oats, but the farmer growing them will not see much higher yields, they are a lower yielding oat, they do not go rancid or spoil in storage, I have the proof in my grain bins at home with SGS labs, an accredited seed lab recognised around the world, doing rancidity tests on grain that was stored in a grain bin for seven years and it was still not rancid. If this blogger was to do his homework, naked oats have a thin waxy coating on them that the seed grows to protect itself from the elements, this keeps the seed fresh for YEARS without needing to be processed in any way. I suppose the spoilage was a problem in the 1600’s when the grain was stored in the basement of a castle-there have been a few improvments in grain storage since then too (another shocking revalation for this blogger)
I came across Dr Vern Burrows experimental variety when I was looking to replace my aging naked oat variety AC Belmont. It is a radically different grain in many ways from traditional oats, or naked oats in the traditional types. It is completely hulless and hairless eliminating so many of the inconsistent quality and growing issues that the older types had. The smut issue is a grain growing issue for farmers, a disease that all grains can have. I have grown these oats in my own fields and on many test plots with third party researchers and smut, rust, and ergot-common diseases of grains-have been no problem at all. we have pretty consistent yields in the 3-3600lbs/acre range. No not many times the yield of traditional oats, but very respectable compared with any modern oat cultivars.
If this blogger wants to research his articles better, maybe he would ask some questions regarding this new type of naked oat from people that know what is really going on and not google article from the 1870’s and WOW! even as recently as 1923!! Sorry dude, back to school for you.
another quick note. Any of the statements I have made about this new naked oats is backed up not only with years of data from accredited labs as well as government labs, but also by the dedicated and hard working staff at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. I will go toe to toe with anyone that would like to have an intelligent and well researched discussion on what this new grain will and wont do to change not only the nutrition of the world, but also to dramatically lower the carbon footprint and water use of competing grains
Scott Sigvaldason
hey. i want a reply to why you will not post the rebuttal i posted. what you wrote here is very inflammatory and simply outdated and untrue. if you want a less combative rebuttal let me know. but what you are accusung me of here is potentially damaging. be big enough to learn something new
sure would like to see my comments posted or have a way to post a rebuttal. email or call me 1204 641 1802
Dude, not everyone is on Manitoba time.
Pointmade and kudos to you for posting it. When the first post I sent was no longer coming up as in moderation, I assumed it was off the blog period. If you didnt notice i am very passionate about what I do and took the criticism very seriously. Please visit the website and if you have any questions please contact me i would love to discuss what this grain is going to do if it is allowed to spread. What I want to see is that this grain in a number of years is grown by farmers large and small around the world as a replacement for a lot of the rice that is currently grown. The biggest advantage that Cavena Nuda has is as a replacement for rice that can be grown on dry land without irrigation like rice.
I was at a show in Toronto recently and what I tell people I want to see in 10-20 years is that a small farmer in a place like India for instance where the rainfall is less all the time due to climate change can stop flooding a rice paddy and drink the precious fresh water instead and grow Cavena Nuda instead of rice. When he or she harvests the Cavena Nuda in the morning, they can cook it for a noon meal for their family-it is ready to eat right off the field with no processing needed like rice or oats-in the afternoon the farmer can take it to the city to relatives to sell some of it and come home with some money in their pocket and a house full of healthy kids. To me that is the big payback for my efforts.
Scott Sigvaldason
Smart and Natural foods ltd
I grow them in the garden. The birds enjoy them a lot but I managed to get 5kg from a 25m row this year http://brownenvelopeseeds.blogspot.com/2010/11/naked-oats.html#comments