Evaluating macro‐ and micro‐mineral contents and agronomic traits of Turkish oat landraces

Abstract

The cultivated oat (Avena sativa L. and A. byzantina Coch.) is an important annual cereal and forage plant. A large collection of historical oat landraces gathered from different diversity centers is maintained in various seed banks. A historical oat collection consisted of 174 Turkish landraces were evaluated for agronomic performance and mineral nutrient content. The experiment was arranged in an augmented design with six replications of 10 check cultivars and 29 landraces in each block. The most important finding of the study was that the landraces manifested a wide range of variation in all agronomic traits and that some historical landraces outperformed the check cultivars. Since it was dry for the grain‐filling period (GFP) in 2019, some drought‐tolerant landraces were identified. In addition, the top 10 landraces for yield and mineral content were also identified based on each year's performance as well as on the 3‐yr average. The landrace TL69/PI411401 was found to be prominent for high calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), phosphorus (P), boron (B), and zinc (Zn) content; TL86/PI167378 for Ca, P, potassium (K), and iron (Fe) contents; and TL71/PI411414 for Ca, P, B, and Zn content.