Collaboratrices et collaborateurs

It can't be ignored: Winters in Central Europe are getting milder. Even though there are always short periods of deep minus temperatures, the mild phases in the winter months dominate. This opens up new options for agriculture. For example, experimenting farmers have drilled spring barley or spring oats in the fall to escape the spring drought. The results have been very encouraging and have raised the question of which varieties are suitable for fall seeding. In addition, the effects on disease incidence and grain quality are not fully known. The CROPDIVA project is investigating precisely these issues. In these experiments, 250 current Central European spring oat varieties and breeding lines were drilled in Granskevitz (Rügen, Germany), Dottenfelder Hof (Bad Vilbel, Germany), Aberystwyth (Wales), Zurich (Switzerland) and Tulln (Austria) in the fall and also in the spring, and their overwintering ability, agronomic properties and quality parameters are being determined. In the first year, differential winter killing occurred at two of the five locations. CROPDIVA wants to put 6 underused arable crops back in the fields: oats, hull-less barley for human consumption, triticale, buckwheat, faba beans and lupins. 27 European partners are joining forces to enhance agrobiodiversity in Europe. They will achieve this by focusing on crop diversity and creating local value chains. Interestingly, many spring oats compensated for the frost damage with higher tillering. In the end, there was an additional yield for fall sown oats of 26% across all varieties and locations! The smallest difference between fall and spring sowing was measured on the isle of Rügen with 16%, the highest yield difference was found at Aberystwyth with 40% across all varieties. In addition to the significant increase in yield, fall sown varieties showed lower levels of powdery mildew infection. Furthermore, modern varieties such as Delfin and Yukon outperformed older varieties such as Flämingsstern and Firth, illustrating breeding progress. In addition to higher yields, kernel content was 8% higher in fallsown oat varieties than in springsown varieties. At the same time, there were slightly higher values for the ingredients beta glucan, starch and fat. In contrast to this, protein content decreased by an average of 2.5%, which is associated with the higher grain yield. Thus, for the production of milling oats, fall-sown spring oat varieties are a highly profitable option. Suitable varieties for fall sowing according to the first trial year are "Delfin", Curly and Zorro.