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Wheat disease sees Canadian farmers looking to oats
Feb. 28, 2017
Quality concerns in wheat and barley are prompting Prairie producers to consider other cereal alternatives this spring, including oats.
“We are seeing a huge influx of acres into oats,” said Scott Shiels, grain procurement merchant with Grain Millers Canada Corp. in Saskatchewan. “We have more on the books than we’ve ever had for this time of year.”
He said last year’s disease pressures in wheat and barley is behind much of the interest in planting oats.
Fusarium was a major problem in Canada’s cereal crops in 2016 - although oats are less susceptible to the fungal disease, Shiels noted. Even when oats are infected, the fusarium is concentrated on the hulls, rather than the groats. As oats are de-hulled as they enter the mill, testing has shown minimal fusarium in oat groats.
“We haven’t had to reject any (oats) this year because of fusarium,” Shiels said.
From a pricing standpoint, Shiels described the current oats market as stable, with new-crop oats and the spot market both trading at around C$3/bu in Yorkton. He added that good demand was keeping values steady, despite the expected increase in acres.
Canadian farmers seeded 2.8 million acres of oats in 2016, according to Statistics Canada data. That was down by 500,000 acres from the previous year.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is currently forecasting seeded oats area in 2017 at 3 million acres.
Source: DePutter Publishing Ltd.
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