Making oat raw material safer and healthier with genetic tools - HAKA

Oats from Finland are well praised for its high-quality grains from safe and environmentally friendly production. Due to the ongoing «oat boom» globally, the demand is expected to only grow while at the same time EU limits toward toxic and contaminant contents in raw materials or products are getting even more strict. Within this project three threats for increasing oat production are addressed: 1) Toxic heavy metals cadmium (Cd) and nickel (Ni) are easily accumulated by oats; 2) flowers are infected with Fusarium fungi resulting in animal and human hazardous mycotoxins DON and T2/HT2 left in grains and 3) if flour rich in free asparagine are used for oat baking there will be significant amount of carcinogenic acrylamide.

With more limitations to come this project is therefore focusing on finding new and developing the existing ones phenotypic, genetic, and genomic tools for more safe oat production through breeding new cultivars stable in low contents of hazardous compounds. The aim of the project proposed is to use the newest analytical and genomic approaches to find genetic markers and gene candidates; and improve genomic models linked to the minimal accumulation of Cd and Ni; mycotoxins and acrylamide. The final goal is to support sufficient and safe production of raw oat materials either for feed, food and developing new products. The results are expected to have immediate practical and thus commercial gain by including developed tools in the ongoing breeding programs. It can be said that the entire oat industry including a wide range of stakeholders, from field to the fork, is benefiting equally from having safer oat grains.