Potential of Oats (Avena sativa) for Food Grain Production with its Special Feature of Soil Acidity Tolerance and Nutritional Quality in Central Highlands of Ethiopia

Abstract

Oats remain an important crop in marginal ecologies, for grain as well as for feed. They are well adapted to a wide range of soil types and can perform better than other small-grain cereals on acid soils. Low soil pH and associated soil infertility problems are considered to be amongst the major challenges to acid sensitive crops production. This study demonstrated that grain type white seeded food oat variety 79 Ab 382 (Tx) 80 SA 94 is superior in grain yield performance on acidic soil in the multilocation trials across the testing environments. It has better agronomic performance and has showed a comparative yield advantage of 5.53% over the mean. Hence, it has been approved for release by the National Variety Release Committee. Therefore, cultivation of the new variety is recommended in highland acid prone areas of the country having similar climatic conditions with the testing sites. The oat variety 79Ab 382 (Tx) 80SA94 contain a high percentage of protein (16.0), fat (8.4) and ash (3.6) which have proved it highly nutritive in comparison to other cereals. Its high lipid content (8.4%) makes it different from other cereals. The mineral content of 79Ab 382 (Tx) 80 SA 94 oat variety was better than other cereals and its calcium content was (156.35 mg l-1). In preparation of injera; mixing ratio of 75% teff and 25% oat (treatment 4) showed an excellent over all acceptance with all injera quality parameters (i.e., texture, colour, odour, taste and eye distribution) at equal level with injera made from teff which is the stable food in the country. Since this underutilized food oat has a better nutritional value than those conventional small seeded cereal crops, it gave an insight to feed the ever-increasing population of the country and solve the demand of raw material for up-coming agro industries.