Developing enhanced breeding methodologies for oats for human health and nutrition
Lead Research Organisation:
Heriot-Watt University
Department Name: Sch of Energy, Geosci, Infrast & Society
Abstract
Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
Technical Summary
The demand for high quality food grade oats is increasing annually, driven by its proven health benefits and by product development by the milling and cereals industries. Despite an expanding market, the oat crop is facing increasing competition from other arable crops and that is impacting on the UK oat area grown. This project will apply the latest genetic tools and resources, including genomic selection, to improve key traits that will increase the production and utilisation of oats, and to enhance grain yield, quality and composition. These are increasingly important traits for the UK oat milling industry to fully exploit the nutritional characteristics of the oat grain and key economic drivers for product development. Optimal strategies for high throughput phenotyping and genotyping will be developed. We will establish an efficient high throughput genotyping platform for use across the breeding programme. The advantages of genomic selection over conventional breeding approaches for defined traits will be determined and practical limits established for the use of GS on a wider scale. It will use a range of unique genetic material to dissect the genetic and environmental factors contributing to yield variation and use that information in an innovative oat breeding programme. Breeding programme populations will be used to extend the range of available marker-trait assays to improve selection efficiency in early generations and ensure uniformity in late generations. Phenotyping of key traits concerned with yield, milling quality and with human health and nutrition will be conducted and the impact of changing grain quality characters (beta-glucan or starch content/type) determined. GS results will be validated and gain compared with conventional and MAS approaches on the same populations. This will dramatically increase the efficiency of breeding new varieties and identify regions of the genome associated with key traits through detailed stakeholder discussions.
Planned Impact
The major beneficiaries of this research will be:
Plant breeding community: Information on the application of genomic selection in an oat breeding programme will be of value to other breeders of oats and other cereal crops. Development of high throughput screens for key traits associated with milling quality, grain composition and yield that can be used at the early stages of the breeding programme necessitating lower seed quanities will enhance selection ofr yield and quality and wil be of direct benefit to genomic selection approaches but more generally would be beneficial to other breeding programmes.
Arable sector: The project will have a significant economic and environmental benefit on the arable sector. Oats are recognised as a low input cereal crop, that can be grown in arable rotations across the UK. It is an excellent break crop and therefore has a major role in sustainable arable rotations. Application of genomic selection and high throughput phenotyping to the breeding of improved oat varieties with greater yield and grain and milling quality that meets the needs of end-users and the oat value-chains will improve the economics of growing the crop and its value to the arable sector. This will ensure that oats remain a competitive crop for arable production and that the benefit of growing oats in arable rotations is realised.
Milling industry:Increasing awareness of the health benefits of eating oats, largely due to the beta-glucan content of the grain but also to other grain compositinal characteristics, is increasing the demand for oats and oat based products at a time when the oat crop is increasingly challenged by competition from other cereals. using GS approaches to increase the yield of new oat varieties will increase the financial return of growing oats and will help to ensure that the milling industry has a greater security of supply. The focus on grain quality and composition will also ensure that new varieties have the essential grain quality characteristics that ensure the economic efficiency of the mills and cost benefit. The milling industry will also benefit from the focus on grain composition which will enhance the potential of using oats for different end-uses.
Society: Direct benefit will be gained from ensuring the supply of a cereal with recognised health benefits. Enhanced yield and quality of oat varieties will improve the economics of growing oat crops and so ensure that oats, as alow input cereal remain a part of sustainable arable rotations, increasing cropping diversity.
Plant breeding community: Information on the application of genomic selection in an oat breeding programme will be of value to other breeders of oats and other cereal crops. Development of high throughput screens for key traits associated with milling quality, grain composition and yield that can be used at the early stages of the breeding programme necessitating lower seed quanities will enhance selection ofr yield and quality and wil be of direct benefit to genomic selection approaches but more generally would be beneficial to other breeding programmes.
Arable sector: The project will have a significant economic and environmental benefit on the arable sector. Oats are recognised as a low input cereal crop, that can be grown in arable rotations across the UK. It is an excellent break crop and therefore has a major role in sustainable arable rotations. Application of genomic selection and high throughput phenotyping to the breeding of improved oat varieties with greater yield and grain and milling quality that meets the needs of end-users and the oat value-chains will improve the economics of growing the crop and its value to the arable sector. This will ensure that oats remain a competitive crop for arable production and that the benefit of growing oats in arable rotations is realised.
Milling industry:Increasing awareness of the health benefits of eating oats, largely due to the beta-glucan content of the grain but also to other grain compositinal characteristics, is increasing the demand for oats and oat based products at a time when the oat crop is increasingly challenged by competition from other cereals. using GS approaches to increase the yield of new oat varieties will increase the financial return of growing oats and will help to ensure that the milling industry has a greater security of supply. The focus on grain quality and composition will also ensure that new varieties have the essential grain quality characteristics that ensure the economic efficiency of the mills and cost benefit. The milling industry will also benefit from the focus on grain composition which will enhance the potential of using oats for different end-uses.
Society: Direct benefit will be gained from ensuring the supply of a cereal with recognised health benefits. Enhanced yield and quality of oat varieties will improve the economics of growing oat crops and so ensure that oats, as alow input cereal remain a part of sustainable arable rotations, increasing cropping diversity.
Organisations
- Heriot-Watt University (Lead Research Organisation)
- PepsiCo (Collaboration)
- Zero Waste Scotland (Collaboration)
- National Institute of Agricultural Botany (Collaboration)
- URSULA AGRICULTURE LIMITED (Collaboration)
- Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (Collaboration)
- University of Wales (Collaboration)
Publications
Schreiber M
(2022)
Measuring the frequency and distribution of meiotic crossovers in homozygous barley inbred lines.
in Frontiers in plant science
Sandison F
(2022)
Does green vertical farming offer a sustainable alternative to conventional methods of production?: A case study from Scotland
in Food and Energy Security
Pitcairn, J.
(2017)
biorefining potential for scotland
McWilliam SC
(2019)
Oat Growth Guide
Considine MJ
(2021)
Stress effects on the reactive oxygen species-dependent regulation of plant growth and development.
in Journal of experimental botany
Brooker R
(2022)
Active and adaptive plasticity in a changing climate
in Trends in Plant Science
Allwood JW
(2019)
Rapid UHPLC-MS metabolite profiling and phenotypic assays reveal genotypic impacts of nitrogen supplementation in oats.
in Metabolomics : Official journal of the Metabolomic Society
| Description | Detailed metabolomic analysis of oats in a varying rate nitrogen trial identified that this route can not only be used to control gross compositional components such as protein but also more defined nutritional components such as thiamine (Vit B1) and Vitamin D3. The latter is normally only associated with oily fish intake so this could relevant to vegan diets. Also the nitrogen supplementation had a significant impact on the relative composition of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. Besides, impacting on nutrition this also impacts upon the organoleptic experiences and raw and processed product shelf-life. The project information has also informed (horizontally) the development of the oat growth guide developed as part of the IUK project Optioat (BB/M02749X/1) |
| Exploitation Route | The findings will be of use to industry and food processors with regard to matching primary production to secondary processing and food use and consumption. The project has delivered outcomes for multiple endusers: Plant breeding community: Information has been generated on the application of genomic selection in an oat breeding programmes to facilitate a faster generation of new varieties for future climates. Arable sector: The teasing out of the factors that impact growth development and end point quality are all important to the sustainable economic and environmental benefits for on the arable sector. Oats were again identified as a low input cereal crop, that can be grown in arable rotations across the UK and is an excellent break crop and therefore has a major role in sustainable arable rotations. Milling industry:The metabolomic approach particularly impacts upon this community as it identified the specific impacts of production systems and inputs on quality and health beneficial components. Using the Innovoat developed approaches to increase the yield of new oat varieties will increase the financial return of growing oats and will help to ensure that the milling industry has a greater security of supply. The milling industry has also benefitted from the focus on grain composition which will enhance the potential of using oats for different end-uses. Society: Direct benefit will be gained from ensuring the supply of a cereal with recognised health benefits. Enhanced yield and quality of oat varieties will improve the economics of growing oat crops and so ensure that oats, as a low input cereal remain a part of sustainable arable rotations, increasing cropping diversity. |
| Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink |
| Description | Yes. The findings and more specifically the tools and technologies developed therein have been used to generate multiple publications identified below. 1. Freitag S, Verrall SR, Pont SDA, McRae D, Sungurtas JA, Palau R, Hawes C, Alexander CJ, Allwood JW, Foito A, Stewart D, Shepherd LVT. (2017) Impact of Conventional and Integrated Management Systems on the Water-Soluble Vitamin Content in Potatoes, Field Beans, and Cereals. J Agric Food Chem. 2018 Jan 31;66(4):831-841. doi: 10.1021/acs.jafc.7b03509; 2. Foito A, Hackett CA, Stewart D, Velmurugan J, Milbourne D, Byrne SL, Barth S. (2017) Quantitative trait loci associated with different polar metabolites in perennial ryegrass - providing scope for breeding towards increasing certain polar metabolites. BMC Genet. 18(1):84. doi: 10.1186/s12863-017-0552-0. 3. McWilliam SC, Stewart D, Howarth C, Langdon T, Ober E., Clarke S. (2019). Oat Growth Guide. https://www.hutton.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/publications/Oat-Growth-Guide.pdf 4. Allwood J, Xu Y, Martinez-Martin P, Palau R, Cowan A, Goodacre R..... Howarth C, (2019). Rapid UHPLC-MS metabolite profiling and phenotypic assays reveal genotypic impacts of nitrogen supplementation in oats.. Metabolomics : Official journal of the Metabolomic Society, 15 (3), pp. 42 The publications are significantly impactful. papers 1 and 2 underpinned the methodologies to be used in Innovoat whilst 3 &4 were directly applied to and focused on oat. The oat growth guide (3) was developed as demand for high quality UK oats for food use continues to increase, but research has indicated that there is a yield gap of approximately 4 t/ha between average and best on-farm oat yields. by pooling the effort in Innovoat and Opti-Oat, a sister Innovate UK project, a consortium of leading industry and academic partners came together to form the Opti-Oat project. This led to the development of the first UK Oat Growth Guide. This Oat Growth Guide is designed to increase understanding of winter and spring oats through crop growth and development benchmarks, with the aim of improving yield and quality to deliver a sustainable supply and maximise grower returns. The latter paper (4) took a high science deep dive to the impacts on crop production system, here nitrogen inputs, and environment on crop (oat) quality. This identified that grain quality traits displayed significant differences both between varieties and nitrogen application level. ß-glucan content, the basis of oat health claims, significantly increased with nitrogen application. Amino acid metabolism was massively upregulated by nitrogen supplementation as were total protein levels, whilst the levels of organic acids were decreased, likely due to them acting as a carbon skeleton source. Several TCA cycle intermediates were also impacted, potentially indicating increased TCA cycle turn over, thus providing the plant with a source of energy and reductant power to aid elevated nitrogen assimilation. Elevated nitrogen availability was also directed towards the increased production of nitrogen containing phospholipids. A number of both positive and negative impacts on the metabolism of phenolic compounds that have influence upon the health beneficial value of oats and their products were also observed More recently, the upswing in plan milks has meant we are now developing the concept of oat milks. There are successful business already in the area , e.g. Oatley etc, but we have been in discussion with New Zealand and Scottish farmers about an oat varieties Southern Gold L5. In NZ this has been used as a basis for Otis (https://otisoatmilk.co.nz/) oatmilk. We are working with the Scottish farmer that has the licence for UK production of Southern Gold L5 and are looking to develop a Scottish brand of oatmilk |
| First Year Of Impact | 2019 |
| Sector | Agriculture, Food and Drink |
| Impact Types | Cultural,Societal,Economic |
| Description | Defining barley varietal traits for climate change mitigation and adaptation with emphasis on reduced inputs and variable water |
| Amount | £105,984 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/X51164X/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2022 |
| End | 08/2024 |
| Description | Moving to net zero barley production |
| Amount | £105,984 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/X511699/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2022 |
| End | 08/2024 |
| Description | Optimising oat yield and quality to deliver sustainable production and economic impact (Opti-Oat) |
| Amount | £871,746 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | 102128 |
| Organisation | Innovate UK |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2015 |
| End | 02/2019 |
| Description | The James Hutton Institute and Davidson Brothers (Shotts) Limited |
| Amount | £159,908 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | 511534 |
| Organisation | Innovate UK |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2019 |
| End | 02/2022 |
| Description | The James Hutton Institute and Intelligent Growth Solutions Limited |
| Amount | £78,127 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | 509898 |
| Organisation | Innovate UK |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 12/2016 |
| End | 11/2018 |
| Description | ZIRON Pulse: Upscaling adoption and exploitation of a wide diversity of Iron and Zinc-rich beans by rural populations in Africa |
| Amount | £999,410 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | BB/T008865/1 |
| Organisation | Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 02/2020 |
| End | 02/2023 |
| Title | Development of LC-MS metabolomic methods for oat metabolic analysis |
| Description | LC-MS (Orbitrap) based systems have been optimized for the fully targeted analysis of a broad range of oat metabolites: metabolites implicated in the end product consumer sensory experience. A standard operating procedures has been developed. Details are: Scottish Metabolomics Network November 2018 Glasgow City College (organiser: University of Glasgow) and November 2019 Discovery Point Dundee (organiser JHI Dundee). Presented the following poster: Application of metabolomics to study the effect of nitrogen elevation on winter oat metabolite composition and quality traits: J. William Allwood, Yun Xu, Raphaelle Palau, Catherine Howarth, Athole Marshall, Roy Goodacre, Derek Stewart Abstract - Developing high quality oats is constrained by a lack of information on the impact of genetic and environmental/management factors. Current knowledge on optimal nitrogen levels is insufficient and both greater oat yields and higher quality oats could be achieved. In this study, four winter oat varieties were grown in two locations in replicated nitrogen response trials. The oats were analysed with a rapid 15 minuteC18 UHPLC gradient in conjunction with full MS and data dependent analysis (DDA) MSn. The data were chromatographically aligned and deconvolved within XCMS online and peaks putatively identified based upon accurate mass-derived molecular formula matching to multiple databases. Data visualisation/reduction approaches were applied with PCA and a novel method, t-distributed stochastic neighbourhood embedding (t- SNE). t-NE showed a greater capability in detecting sample class clusters compared to variance capture oriented methods such as PCA, however since tSNE is based on a distance matrix, the significance loadings are not directly available. Therefore, a significance test known as ANOVA simultaneous component analysis (ASCA) was applied with multiple factors, oat variety, location and nitrogen level, being investigated. The identifications of the most significant ions have been obtained from the accurate mass data, as well as MS2 and MS3 spectra obtained from DDA-MSn. Considerations of the agronomic significance of the metabolite profiling results a long with correlations to the oats physical traits is currently ongoing. |
| Type Of Material | Technology assay or reagent |
| Year Produced | 2017 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | This has underpinned the submission of a paper based on the approach and there is interest from the major oat processing companies such as PepsiCo |
| URL | http://karl-burgess.squarespace.com/s/SMN17_delegate_pack_online_6.pdf |
| Title | oat metabolomic data base |
| Description | All the data from the multiple oat diversity, production and environment experiments have been compiled into an interrogative database for future research and paper construction |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | The data base has been used for publications to look at the impact of nitrogen supplementation on oat productivity and quality. The database allowed shifts in metabolic networks and fluxes to be identified. This showed that application of nitrogen had a significant effect on grain yield but there was no significant difference between the response in the varieties analysed. Grain quality traits however displayed significant differences both between varieties and nitrogen application level. ß-glucan content significantly increased with nitrogen application. The UHPLC-MS approach has provided a rapid, sub 15 min per sample, metabolite profiling method that is repeatable and appropriate for the screening of large numbers of cereal samples. The method captured a wide range of compounds, inclusive of primary metabolites such as the amino acids, organic acids, vitamins and lipids, as well as a number of key secondary metabolites, including the avenanthramides, caffeic acid, and sinapic acid and its derivatives and was able to identify distinct metabolic phenotypes for the varieties studied. Amino acid metabolism was massively upregulated by nitrogen supplementation as were total protein levels, whilst the levels of organic acids were decreased, likely due to them acting as a carbon skeleton source. Several TCA cycle intermediates were also impacted, potentially indicating increased TCA cycle turn over, thus providing the plant with a source of energy and reductant power to aid elevated nitrogen assimilation. Elevated nitrogen availability was also directed towards the increased production of nitrogen containing phospholipids. A number of both positive and negative impacts on the metabolism of phenolic compounds that have influence upon the health beneficial value of oats and their products were also observed. |
| URL | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6476850/ |
| Description | Biorefining Potential for Scotland - Mapping Bioresource arisings across Scotland |
| Organisation | Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | As part of a collaborative effort between Zero Waste Scotland, Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre and Prof Stewart (funded via Innovoat and the Scottish Government) a large mapping exercise has been undertaken to too at the available bio-waste and conductor generated in Scotland with the view to realizing their potential as feedstocks for exloitation and value up-scaling into, for example, high value chemicals, ingredients etc. The finalized report "Biorefining Potential for Scotland - Mapping Bioresource arisings across Scotland" is in a draft format at the moment. In this are data for oat co-products also hence the link to Innovoat and the sister Innovate UK project Opti-Oat. As part of this collaboration Prof Stewart help set the parameters and feedstocks to be mined for and the interpretation of the final data in terms of realizing the value. Unique input from Pro Stewart related to the applications within which the wastes and coporducts could be used for product and value creation. |
| Collaborator Contribution | ZWS and IBioIC funded the project and input similar effort to that identified by Prof Stewart above. ZWS supplied significant amounts of the raw waste data from their yearly data collection systems. IBioICwere, like Prof Stewart, more involved in the feedstock valuation aspects and exploitation to products plans |
| Impact | 1. Biorefining Potential for Scotland - Mapping Bioresource arisings across Scotland Draft report 2. Biorefining Potential for Scotland - Mapping Bioresource arisings across Scotland. An excel based model that allows the user to mine the bioarisings data at local authority level across Scotland. Both the above can be classed as multidisciplinary as they involve statistics, biology, chemistry, economics and sociology |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Biorefining Potential for Scotland - Mapping Bioresource arisings across Scotland |
| Organisation | Zero Waste Scotland |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | As part of a collaborative effort between Zero Waste Scotland, Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre and Prof Stewart (funded via Innovoat and the Scottish Government) a large mapping exercise has been undertaken to too at the available bio-waste and conductor generated in Scotland with the view to realizing their potential as feedstocks for exloitation and value up-scaling into, for example, high value chemicals, ingredients etc. The finalized report "Biorefining Potential for Scotland - Mapping Bioresource arisings across Scotland" is in a draft format at the moment. In this are data for oat co-products also hence the link to Innovoat and the sister Innovate UK project Opti-Oat. As part of this collaboration Prof Stewart help set the parameters and feedstocks to be mined for and the interpretation of the final data in terms of realizing the value. Unique input from Pro Stewart related to the applications within which the wastes and coporducts could be used for product and value creation. |
| Collaborator Contribution | ZWS and IBioIC funded the project and input similar effort to that identified by Prof Stewart above. ZWS supplied significant amounts of the raw waste data from their yearly data collection systems. IBioICwere, like Prof Stewart, more involved in the feedstock valuation aspects and exploitation to products plans |
| Impact | 1. Biorefining Potential for Scotland - Mapping Bioresource arisings across Scotland Draft report 2. Biorefining Potential for Scotland - Mapping Bioresource arisings across Scotland. An excel based model that allows the user to mine the bioarisings data at local authority level across Scotland. Both the above can be classed as multidisciplinary as they involve statistics, biology, chemistry, economics and sociology |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Optimising oat yield and quality to deliver sustainable production and economic impact (Opti-Oat) |
| Organisation | National Institute Of Agricultural Botany |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Here my team will grow oat varieties to develop a crop model and use data from commercial p-lots also to validate this. UAV systems will be trialled as a route to developing a predictive groat model for opats |
| Collaborator Contribution | This project will provide UK oat producers with world leading agronomic 'tools' to maximise grower returns and capitalise on the increasing demand for food grade oats. The objectives are 1) Develop and validate algorithms for translating visual / spectral sensor data from Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into quantifiable crop parameters to enable growers to optimise management for yield and quality across fields; 2) develop an Oat Crop Model and associated decision support tools; 3) develop an Oat Growth Guide which will provide a reference to assess crops status against key development bench-marks. Focused dissemination of these innovative tools will increase average yields by at least 1t/ha, contribute to sustainable intensification, reduce supply risk for millers, reduce imports, catalyse product innovation & consumer access to healthy grains and stimulate milled product export. |
| Impact | Talk at Oats2020: http://www.oats2020.org/ An invited platform talk was given entitled - Oat metabolism - genetic and environmental drivers and future enhancement targets. Talk given to Quaker Oats, Chicago on the publicly available aspects of the project and Oats agriculture - what is trending and what should Quaker know. The project delivered an oat growth guide (https://www.huttonltd.com/sites/www.huttonltd.com/files/2019-06/Oat-Growth-Guide.pdf) for the many oat growers in the UK as well as an informational video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIgnxPO_Y_A) |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | Optimising oat yield and quality to deliver sustainable production and economic impact (Opti-Oat) |
| Organisation | PepsiCo |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Here my team will grow oat varieties to develop a crop model and use data from commercial p-lots also to validate this. UAV systems will be trialled as a route to developing a predictive groat model for opats |
| Collaborator Contribution | This project will provide UK oat producers with world leading agronomic 'tools' to maximise grower returns and capitalise on the increasing demand for food grade oats. The objectives are 1) Develop and validate algorithms for translating visual / spectral sensor data from Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into quantifiable crop parameters to enable growers to optimise management for yield and quality across fields; 2) develop an Oat Crop Model and associated decision support tools; 3) develop an Oat Growth Guide which will provide a reference to assess crops status against key development bench-marks. Focused dissemination of these innovative tools will increase average yields by at least 1t/ha, contribute to sustainable intensification, reduce supply risk for millers, reduce imports, catalyse product innovation & consumer access to healthy grains and stimulate milled product export. |
| Impact | Talk at Oats2020: http://www.oats2020.org/ An invited platform talk was given entitled - Oat metabolism - genetic and environmental drivers and future enhancement targets. Talk given to Quaker Oats, Chicago on the publicly available aspects of the project and Oats agriculture - what is trending and what should Quaker know. The project delivered an oat growth guide (https://www.huttonltd.com/sites/www.huttonltd.com/files/2019-06/Oat-Growth-Guide.pdf) for the many oat growers in the UK as well as an informational video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIgnxPO_Y_A) |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | Optimising oat yield and quality to deliver sustainable production and economic impact (Opti-Oat) |
| Organisation | University of Wales |
| Department | Institute of Biological Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Here my team will grow oat varieties to develop a crop model and use data from commercial p-lots also to validate this. UAV systems will be trialled as a route to developing a predictive groat model for opats |
| Collaborator Contribution | This project will provide UK oat producers with world leading agronomic 'tools' to maximise grower returns and capitalise on the increasing demand for food grade oats. The objectives are 1) Develop and validate algorithms for translating visual / spectral sensor data from Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into quantifiable crop parameters to enable growers to optimise management for yield and quality across fields; 2) develop an Oat Crop Model and associated decision support tools; 3) develop an Oat Growth Guide which will provide a reference to assess crops status against key development bench-marks. Focused dissemination of these innovative tools will increase average yields by at least 1t/ha, contribute to sustainable intensification, reduce supply risk for millers, reduce imports, catalyse product innovation & consumer access to healthy grains and stimulate milled product export. |
| Impact | Talk at Oats2020: http://www.oats2020.org/ An invited platform talk was given entitled - Oat metabolism - genetic and environmental drivers and future enhancement targets. Talk given to Quaker Oats, Chicago on the publicly available aspects of the project and Oats agriculture - what is trending and what should Quaker know. The project delivered an oat growth guide (https://www.huttonltd.com/sites/www.huttonltd.com/files/2019-06/Oat-Growth-Guide.pdf) for the many oat growers in the UK as well as an informational video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIgnxPO_Y_A) |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | Optimising oat yield and quality to deliver sustainable production and economic impact (Opti-Oat) |
| Organisation | Ursula Agriculture Limited |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Here my team will grow oat varieties to develop a crop model and use data from commercial p-lots also to validate this. UAV systems will be trialled as a route to developing a predictive groat model for opats |
| Collaborator Contribution | This project will provide UK oat producers with world leading agronomic 'tools' to maximise grower returns and capitalise on the increasing demand for food grade oats. The objectives are 1) Develop and validate algorithms for translating visual / spectral sensor data from Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into quantifiable crop parameters to enable growers to optimise management for yield and quality across fields; 2) develop an Oat Crop Model and associated decision support tools; 3) develop an Oat Growth Guide which will provide a reference to assess crops status against key development bench-marks. Focused dissemination of these innovative tools will increase average yields by at least 1t/ha, contribute to sustainable intensification, reduce supply risk for millers, reduce imports, catalyse product innovation & consumer access to healthy grains and stimulate milled product export. |
| Impact | Talk at Oats2020: http://www.oats2020.org/ An invited platform talk was given entitled - Oat metabolism - genetic and environmental drivers and future enhancement targets. Talk given to Quaker Oats, Chicago on the publicly available aspects of the project and Oats agriculture - what is trending and what should Quaker know. The project delivered an oat growth guide (https://www.huttonltd.com/sites/www.huttonltd.com/files/2019-06/Oat-Growth-Guide.pdf) for the many oat growers in the UK as well as an informational video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIgnxPO_Y_A) |
| Start Year | 2015 |
| Description | Circular Economy and Agri-Food: Business opportunities that don't cost the earth |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | This was a webinar organised by the Dundee and angus Chambers of Commerce - Circular Tayside. The focus was circular economy opportunities in the agri-food sector and the possibilities it presents for profit generation. The meeting had three speakers Professor Derek Stewart- James Hutton Institute - Talked about the opportunities for circular economy and cover highly profitable markets that can be very fruitful ground for investment and recovery. In this Prof stewart talked about the potential of cereal straws (including oats) and other biomass feedstocks Iain Stirling- Arbikie Distillery - Arbikie is one of the world's rare sustainable, field-to-bottle distilleries with unique provenance and traceability due to Arbikie growing, distilling, maturing and bottling at the Arbikie Farm Distillery at Lunan Bay on Scotland's east coast. Arbikie recently launched Nàdar, the world's only climate-positive gin distilled from peas, in collaboration with Abertay University and the James Hutton Institute. During the process the peas are used to fix nitrogen in the soil and used as cattle feed after their fermentation, making this much more sustainable than wheat. Dr Jonathan Wilkin- Abertay University - Dr Jonathan Wilkin is Senior Lecturer in New Product Development and closely involved with the Food Innovation Lab in Abertay University. Having worked closely with Arbikie as well as other companies to create innovation in the food industry, he will be able to share science insights with us. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://circulartayside.co.uk/events/circular-economy-opportunities-in-agri-food-3rd-december-11-12a... |
| Description | Discissions with Highlands and Islands Enterprise on the health benefits of oats and the potential for oat milling waste as a source of health beneficial compounds for exploitation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Prof Stewart attended HIE head quarters in Inverness to discuss the potential of biomass airings (organic waste) in the food and drink industries. There were 5 HIE official present. As part of this the oat supply milling and processing chain was discussed and identified as a rich and geo-concentrated source of phytochemicals that could go back into the food and drink ingredients chain |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Food Matters Live 2016 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Food Matters Live is the UK's only cross-sector event bringing together the food and drink industry, retailers, foodservice providers, government and those working in nutrition, to enable collaboration and innovation to support a sustainable food landscape for the future. At this years event Prof Stewart manned a stand outlining his research part of which was oats based and included Innovoat. Over the period of 3 days he discussed the project with a wide range of attendees including levy boards, funders, industry, the public NGO's charities etc. All in all the research to develop enhanced breeding methodologies for oats for human health and nutrition. In particular the processing industry was very interested with this as oats are seen as a truly problem free ingredient for foods but one that brings multiple health, taste and textural benefits. The discussions did identified that there was no real market for a GM oat but this is a route not currently being pursued. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | https://www.foodmatterslive.com/ |
| Description | Green Growth to Recovery: Unlocking Low Carbon Food Production in the Forth Valley |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Around 60 people attended the webinar on Green Growth to Recovery - Unlocking Low Carbon Food Production in the Forth Valley. This was a circular economy event and in this Professor Stewart discussed cereal (including oat) straw valorisation. The 20 minute talk was followed by a question and answer session around the specifics of the feedstock, the processes to be used and scale of investment needed to realise this. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre Scientific Advisory Board dinner. Talks by members about their science activities. The audience was predominantly IB businesses. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | As part of the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre Scientific Advisory Board activities there is a planned set of activities to allow the board members to discuss their science and how it impact the centre. At this meeting (18/04/18) I talks about many projects including Innovate to a mix of ~40 academics and business representatives. the talk highlighted the place IB has in the Innovate discovery, translation and exploitation pipeline |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | Invited talk at a Pan Portugal project meeting: SMARTAgriFor Norte 2020 | International Symposium, Fostering science, innovation and competitiveness on the agri-food value chains. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | I was invited to talk about Discovery science to commercial exploitation at a project that is running in the north of Portugal. The conference was SMARTAgriFor Norte 2020 | International Symposium, Fostering science, innovation and competitiveness on the agri-food value chains (21 &22/05/18). At the conference my talk included aspects of the Innovate project and how it works within a journey of discovery science to commercial exploitation. As part of the meeting there was a roundtable discussion with keynote speakers and the audience where the issues lie in identifying commercial opportunities and how these can be quickly realized and exploited. This spilled into the are of embedding entrepreneurship and how this should be taught/fostered at the academic training levels |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://web.spi.pt/smartagrifor-norte/content/international-symposium |
| Description | Regional Pitch ro The BioBased Industry Consortium |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Prof Stewart was invited to the Bio-based Industries (BBI; http://biconsortium.eu/) Consortium General Assemble (15/02/17) to give a pitch on how Scotland as a region can contribute to the EU bioeconomy and particularly the foci of the BBI. As part of the this the Scottish Universities and Research institutes capacities were identified in terms of realizing the potential of bio-research. Prof Stewart gave a short presentation to the 100+ audience of industry, EU/national policy, science and EU national development stakeholders within which the bioresource of coproducts , including oats (via Innovoat), was identified as a target for valorization, business development and environmental gains via a circular economy approach can be made. The talk was very well received and discussions are underway to capture this initiative at EU and national levels via collaborative projects and grants |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://biconsortium.eu/news/bic-general-assembly-growing-membership-deepens-bioeconomy-cooperation |
| Description | Stakeholder workshop on Food in Regions - one health, from regionality to functionality. Plovdiv Bulgaria 13/06/19 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | A workshop entitled Food in Regions - one health, from regionality to functionality was organised as a side event for the FOOD 2030 - Research and innovation for food and nutrition security, Plovdiv, Bulgaria (147 15/06/18: http://food2030plovdiv.eu/) This FOOD 2030 side event will showcased the regions of Trento (IT), Flanders (B), Lower Silesia (P), and Scotland (UK) all of which are delivering innovation and associate produce that represent an important contribution to regional economies. The now well recognized One Health concept will highlight how the regions are active in growing a sustainable food bioeconomy, the products from which underpin health and well-being. These successes will describe how regional foods can be employed to improve food system sustainability, help reduce the socioeconomic impact of degenerative disease, and improve regional economic viability and ecological resilience in the face of climate change. At this Innovate oat progress was identified in with other projects to present Scottish and UK primary production as an implicit and vital part of the food and drink supply and value chains. The audience of ~60 policy people, industry and academia engaged in a lively debate about the talks specifics and the common activities toward better food and drink development. Oat was viewed as a good example of how a poorly supported crop has flourished a feedstock for many new health food and drink products |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| URL | http://food2030plovdiv.eu/?page_id=658 |
| Description | The Future of Food: Unlocking the benefits of Scotland's Circular Bioeconomy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Providing a sufficient and sustainable supply of protein is vital to support a healthy human population, a healthy economy and a healthy planet. It is vital to meeting key targets on cutting carbon emissions to end the climate crisis, and to achieving and maintaining food security and financial security alike to ensure the future prosperity of domestic food networks and the communities which rely on them to survive and thrive. Key stakeholders, governments and local authorities across Europe and beyond have been developing a diverse range of strategic sustainable protein plans aimed at enabling those interlinked needs which are summarised in our recent case study report: The Future of Food: Sustainable Protein Strategies from Around the World. This one day virtual event brought together policymakers and experts to explore the development process and success of their national protein strategies; Scottish experts in food systems, agriculture and aquaculture will discuss the opportunities and potential of a similar approach in Scotland; and join the industrial biotechnology showcase where we will take a closer look at some of the highly innovative circular platforms and applications which can significantly enhance sustainability potential in food systems and could be part of a similar approach in Scotland. In this Prof Stewart discussed food systems in relation to current and future protein production in Scotland and discover the true scale and scope of Scotland's opportunity to enable economic, environmental and ecological benefits through advancing the circular bioeconomy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-future-of-food-unlocking-the-benefits-of-scotlands-circular-bioec... |
| Description | meeting with industry |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Following activity in the press and local development meetings I was contacted by a major oat user, Nairns Ltd., Edinburgh to discuss options from the project that could impact on their business. Several discussions (staring on 20/10/19) have been had with the company into the Innovate progress and how this can be utilized to aid Nairns in their development o products free from Acrylamide: a consequence of high temperature baking on protein carbohydrate rich foods. The is is being developed hopefully into future collaborative projects |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |