BETA-GLUCAN CONTENT AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO AGRONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS IN ELITE OAT GERMPLASM

Oat (Avena saliva L.) cultivars with high beta-glucan concentration may be useful as a specialty crop for human food. The objective of this study was to evaluate elite oat germplasm, as represented by the 1988-1991 Uniform Midseason Oat Nursery (UMON) and Uniform Early Oat Nursery (UEON) grown, at Aberdeen, ID, and the Uniform Northwestern States Oat Nursery (UNSON) grown at Aberdeen and Tetonia, ID, for beta-glucan concentration. Relationships between beta-glucan concentration and other agronomic traits were examined. The stability of beta-glucan concentration among environments was determined. The beta-glucan concentrations of entries in the three nurseries ranged between a low of 30 to 47 g kg(-1) and a high of 61 to 70 g kg(-1) depending on the year and were different among genotypes. Thirty-three genotypes were common to all nine environments of the UNSON. The majority of correlations between environments on a pair-wise basis were low, but significant, and stability parameters varied among genotypes. Correlations between beta-glucan concentration and agronomic traits were generally nonexistent or inconsistent across years or nurseries for the UMON and the UEON. For the UNSON, there were consistent significant positive correlations between beta-glucan concentration and test weight, protein percentage, and great percentage and negative correlations with heading date. We concluded that genotypic variation for beta-glucan concentration is sufficient to enable breeding progress. Because beta-glucan concentration was not consistently correlated with other traits, concurrent undesirable shifts in other traits should not hinder breeding progress.