A New Dual-Purpose Facultative Oat for the Southern U.S.

Due to the dormancy of summer grasses, producers often face a lack of quality forage supply during late fall to mid-spring (mid-November to April). Oat has high forage quality and prolific tillering capacity; early grazing, regrowth, and late-season silage production potential; and cold tolerance. For those reasons, oat has become one of the major forage suppliers and sources either of grazing during winter months or of increased stockpiling for later-season use for different livestock.

The University of Florida oat-breeding program has been aggressively developing facultative oat cultivars with high early biomass and grazing potential, good grain yield, robust resistance to diseases, and adequate winterhardiness for fall planting. FLLA11019-8, commercially known as Plot Spike and RAM forage oats, is a new facultative dual-purpose (grain and forage) oat cultivar for the southern U.S. It has semi-prostrate plant type with vigorous early-season growth and high tillering capacity. The cultivar has broad adaptation, high grain yield, excellent volume weight, high forage yield potential, and winter survival. It is resistant to crown and stem rust and moderately resistant to Barley yellow dwarf virus.

FLLA11019-8 has performed very well in both grain and forage trials and is broadly adapted to the southern U.S.