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pf Seugog Citizen -- Tuesday, May 17,1994 --33 The search in on to find the perfect oat genes To find the perfect oat, you need a map. And that course is being charted by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Plant Research Centre in Ottawa, the Quaker Oats Company of Canada and the universities of Cornell, Minnesota and Iowa State. Deemed as one of the most important and advanced oat research projects ever conducted, the effort is driven by the surging demand for oats in food and other products. The goal is to help in pinpointing genes responsible for the degimable characteristics of the oat#n®%ut ,down the time needed for the bFeeder to incorporate these ffs into new oat varieties. Once grown extensively as feed for horses, oat production declined as machines réplaced animals as a means of transportation. Interest has been rekindled in' the wake of reported health benefits provided to consumers of oats. New applications for oat products are also fuelling the demand, The pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries for example, have discovered new uses such as using oat starch in eye make-up. As well, cats are used in producing ethanol, a renewable energy source The Quaker Oats Company, one of the largest users of food oats in the world, took note of the fact oats had a life beyond the porridge bowl. But the company 'recognized that satisfying the demands of the consumer, while maintaining the competitiveness of the crop, would be difficult because new varieties with specialized characteristics would take years to develop The company identified the heyd to map out the genetic eup of the oat plant in order to shave years off the time it take # to breed new varieties. Whee Quaker Canada went looking for research collaborators, it thought of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's scientists, known internationally for their experience and expertise. The company also wanted to take advantage of having a complete range of capabilities, from oat breeding to sophisticated molecular genetics technol under one roof. So while Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada provides the fa~ilities, Iaboratories and personnel, Quaker is helping with funding and technical direction for the project The universities in the US. are conducting their own research including work on gene pools and transgenics Any information gathered by the universitfer is shared with Agriculture and Agri-foed PLEASE USE OUF Canada and Quaker Oats. "This project allows us to find out more about the molecular structure of oats and secondly, it gives us an opportunity to improve agronomic performance while maintaining the nutritional value of oats," says Dave Goslin, Quaker Oats Canada's Director of Quality Assurance. "The project's objective is to collectively gather enough research expertise to have a timely impact on the oats community and to develop within that community a base of technology for the future," Goslin says. The project could benefit oat producers down the road by providing "better varieties more quickly," he adds. Consumers will benefit through both improved products and a wider range of products. The five-year, $5 million project began in 1988. About $1.2 million was directed toward research at the Plant Research Centre. The immediate objective was to identify and map the genes responsible for agronomic and commercial traits in oats. The long-term objective is to use that information to improve the agronomic and quality characteristics of oats. The first objective has already borne fruit. George Fedak, an Agriculture ' and Agri-Food Canada molecular geneticist, has been using leading-edge biotechnology to unravel the mysteries of oat DNA. 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