Talk:Oat

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[edit] Standardization

Any possibility of standardizing the different articles on the main types of grain (wheat, barley, rye, oats, rice, maize ...) to make them more parallel? Is any brave (and qualified) soul prepared to take on the work? Grendlegrutch 10:11, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gluten

The previous update, as of 2006-06-11, 01:00am stated that oats contain no gluten and are safe for sufferers of celiac.

This unsubstantiated claim is irresponsible, unsafe, and inaccurate. Oats contain Avenin which is a gluten. Not all, but many celiacs suffered partial or complete reactivity to this protein. This protein is toxic to the intestinal submucosa, and some T-Cells will overreact, causing celiac sprue.

Link to description of proteins, toxicity, in grains[[1]] Link to reactivity study of avenin in celiacs[[2]] --Xaminmo 06:18, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Singular vs Plural

Is there such thing as a singular "oat"? I would call a single grain an oat kernel. Otherwise it is always oats, except in constructing compound words, as oatmeal, oat flour. Rmhermen 17:36 9 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Aye! Oat! Here Wikipedian insistence on topic headings in the singular case is carried to comic extremes. --Wetman 21:46, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I think it is unfortunate that this was moved to the plural, because now the editor of another page must visit this one to find out that an exception has been made. -- Pekinensis 20:18, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Yes, there is such thing as a singular oat; an oat can mean a single plant of Avena sativa, as in e.g. a single volunteer plant growing in a field of another crop "look, there's an oat in that field" - MPF 11:32, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Agricultural researchers typically use the singular in writing and speaking, for whatever that's worth. ---Belgrano 06:35, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
This must be a dialect issue. In British English at least, an oat is a single "grain", and you need more than one of them to get "oats". I came to this page to find out if there was a reason that there were so many sentences that are ungrammatical to me (e.g. "oats is suitable") but I guess you can say that in other dialects? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.31.42.67 (talk) 15:19, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
In the US, and Canada we grow an "oat" crop, which produces "oats". "Oats" requires X fertilizer. "There are many different chemicals for use on Oats". (A few examples of usage) ChristianH158 17:57, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Interesting, you've picked up a 2 yr old thread here. Looks like around June 05, somebody took out other species that had been included on this page and at the same time moved this article from "oats" to "oat". Looks like "oats" is used like the singular. I notice you wrote "oats requires" rather that "oats require". And that's consistent with how I would say it. Not sure which one it should actually be under though, or if it really matters.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 03:48, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
Will people please stop changing plurality! We seed Oats. We don't seed Oat. "Oats needs fertilizer", and so forth. ChristianH158 01:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, User:Lesgles changed more than just the plurality, otherwise I'd revert. It still could be reverted if the other changes aren't important, or we can manually go back through and change it back. The additional text about plurality is wrong too. "Wheat" is a group noun, "corn" is a group noun, at least as it is used in North America. A single wheat would be nonsensical and a single corn would sound like a reference to foot sore, not a grain. Isn't a single "oat" as described above, more properly called a "kernel of oats"? In any case, I think we need to "unfix" User:Lesgles's changes as to plurality. It would be nice if editors would make substantive and what they think are editorial changes as separate edits. Especially when the issue is discussed at length on the talk page and could reasonably be said to be controversial. I'm also starting to think this article was incorrectly moved here from "Oats".--Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, looks like I should have glanced at the talk page before I made what I thought would be a simple change. I'm willing to take the time to change it back, if we reach a consensus here. A few things, though:
  • The main reason for my edits was that the word oats was used with both singular and plural in the article, seemingly at random. Seeing that, I changed it to what sounded most natural to me. I don't think it's a British/American difference, because I am American. For me, the word is almost always "oats", although I could see instances where it could be singular (when talking about a single grain, or a single species). But just as with the word "clothes", with "oats" I tend to use a plural predicate.
  • Both the Columbia Encyclopedia[3] and Britannica[4] use "oats" with a plural verb: "oats were widely grown...", "oats are valuable...", "oats rival corn", "oats are second only to rye", etc. On Google, "oats are" gets twice as many hits as "oats is".
  • I also would support a move back to "Oats", though, as I think that whether we regard it as singular or plural, it is the most common form (and following my same argument, it's what Columbia and Britannica use). Lesgles (talk) 18:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
No Problem, maybe it's not as obvious as any of us think. Oats appears to be grammatically unusual at the very least. I'm not sure that it matters very much as both usages seem to be fairly common. In fact, see the following Dictionary.com entries. Though we should try to settle on the noun's number, so different people don't keep changing it back and forth; that doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be consistent throughout. It appears that the move to "oat" in 05 was without any discussion. Why are all of these questions of number Ag problems? Most of the grains have a group noun (wheat, corn, rye), which would rarely if ever be made plural, then there's "oats", which seems to be a group noun frequently used as a singular but rarely made singular by dropping the "s", "beans" and "peas" both have a useful singular but the plural is much more common for everyday use, and then of course there's cattle, which doesn't even have a singular and is never used in the singular - such that one has to say "one steer", "one cow", or sometimes where I'm from "one beef creature". Ugghhh!--Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that you need to watch what you're defining as "oats". If you are talking about the actual kernels in the bin, then they are plural. When you are talking about the crop, then it is singular. For instance: "Oats is susceptible to stem-rust." "Oats are graded #1 @ 42lbs." ChristianH158 15:12, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I don't think it's that simple. Doug is right: most dictionaries seem to accept either singular or plural. But the plural seems to be more common than the singular in reference works, and on the net (see above), and this occurs when talking not only about individual kernels, but also about the grain in general. In the OED I can find 5 examples with a plural verb and 1 with a singular:
  • 1857 E. ACTON Eng. Bread-bk. I. vi. 75 In the south of England oats are not employed for bread, but only for feeding horses.
  • 1785 W. H. MARSHALL Rural Econ. Midland Counties (1790) II. 167 Many oats..have this year been ‘sheaved’: namely, mown outward, gathered from the swaths, bound, and shucked.
  • 1760 R. BROWN Compl. Farmer II. 82 White oats..come up sooner, and top the weeds better than black.
  • 1856 J. C. MORTON Cycl. Agric. II. 483/1 Potato oats grown for ten or a dozen of years on late and inferior soil, are totally different in sample and straw from those grown upon fine firm loams.
  • 1987 Stock & Land (Melbourne) 18 June 19 Echidna oats can make milling quality and millers are taking them even though they are not the preferred variety.
  • 1819 D. B. WARDEN Acct. U.S. II. 538 Water oats, or wild rice (Zizania aquatica) grows in the soft marshes of the eastern parts [of Louisiana].
-Lesgles (talk) 16:08, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Aflatoxins?

Isn't it possible that eating raw oats in higher amounts - say, 100/200 g per day - could cause dietary problems? E.g. because of relatively small amount of aflatoxins (in the regions of USA, EU)? Am asking because of cases when eating raw oats can lead to diarrhea, and omitting them can lead back to normal stool.--Mar cel 07:53, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Seems very unlikely. Anyone who eats muesli would be eating that much or more with no problems. Eating oats isn't going to get you caught between two stools. - MPF 14:50, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

This problem you have surely also with some other raw fruits, vegetables and so on. There is no "prescription" how you can defend yourself against this problem. A rest risk is "always" there. Only by cooking you avoid more or less the aflatoxines. --Fackel 01:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

In UK prisons during the 19th century, prisoners who were fed exclusively on oatmeal gruel for years at a time survived with no ill effects, so I wouldn't worry. -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:49, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] English attitude to oats

The article says "A traditional saying in England is that "oats are only fit to be fed to horses and Scotsmen". I would suggest that this is probably not traditional, but a misquotation of the relevant (and quite well known) entry in Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language of 1755:

oats: 'a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.'

Johnson's Dictionary is renowned for his witty definitions. The OED will presumably be able to give details of earlier comments of this type, if they exist. - Jwelby 08:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Oat milk

The external link to the oat milk product is interesting. But I especially loved the part where it says "It is free of milk protein, lactose and soya". I couldn't help feeling that they should have added "Warning: may contain oats!" -- Derek Ross | Talk 05:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Crop Yield

I was surprised to read in the article that a typical crop yield is only two bushels per acre, because market prices for oats typically run from $1 to $3 per bushel (ref: long term records at the Chicago Board of Trade, www.cbot.com). Right now (Sept. 9, 2006) it's roughly $2.00 a bushel. Thus, the typical crop yield reported in the article would earn a farmer only $4/acre. This does not seem economical to me, given the time and effort required to harvest the oats. Is it really true that a 250 acre plot of oats would fetch a mere $1000 at market? If so, how do the oats farmers earn a living off that, much less make a profit? Does the crop yield claim have a reference that can be checked?

Please read more closely: 2 bushels is the amount seeded. "A good yield is typically about 3000 kg/hectare (100 bushels/acre) of grain and two tonnes of straw." as the article says. Rmhermen 21:14, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I corrected the seeding rates. I'm an active agricultural producer, and am in the process of proofreading/updating some of the articles relating to agriculture. Oats is seeded at between 2.75 and 3.25 bushels per acre. We seed at 3.0 Bushles / acre, or 106.2 lbs. ChristianH158 15:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Manufactured oats vs. oat grain

Care should be given to the naming of different kinds of oat products. Rice, wheat, barley refer to uncooked grains. Therefore, people assume that "oats" is an uncooked grain. This is not true. To the best of my knowledge, all forms of oats are pre-cooked. To remove the hulls, whole oats are reportedly steamed to make hull removal easier. Therefore even oat groats are partially cooked. On the other extreme, rolled oats are oats which have been steamed until soft, smashed with a roller, dried, and stored at room temperature in open air for months before shipping to market. Rolled oats are more closely related to cardboard than to the whole grain called oats. Robert Elliott 04:45, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oat production data

Could you please clarify where these figures came from? The link to FAOSTAT only provides data until 2004. The values here are not quite the same, so presumably are correct. I would be interested in the 2005 data.

FredG.

They did come from the FAO - however they are reqorking their website so the links don't always work anymore. Rmhermen 18:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge oat milling into this article

Comments please... nirvana2013 09:42, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Merge. The feedstock, the process, and the product are inextricably intertwined into a mucilagineous, porridge-like mass of information. Bigturtle 22:22, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I hope to do this sometime today, or tomorrow. Regards,<br/>Christian A. Herrnboeck 12:55, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bushel Weight

Hi,


Where was the 32 lbs @ 14% moisture found? Oats is stored dry at, or less than, 12%. Anything over that will cause mold and/or spoilage.

Also, at 12%, Number 1 grade oats is 38 lbs, and Number 3 is 36 lbs.

Oats at 32lbs would be "Light Weight", and thus not fit for consumption... I'll update this to read "38lbs @ 12%", shortly.


ChristianH158 15:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC)


The US Standards for Grain say that US No. 1, 2, 3, and 4 oats are 36, 33, 30, and 27 lbs/bu respectively. The Standards discuss Heavy (38 to 40 lbs) and Extra-heavy (40+ lbs) grades, but don't mention a Light grade. The document is silent on moisture, which seems odd to me. Any further thoughts on what the main page should say? --Belgrano (talk) 17:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


Right. However, we can't use one country's standards... Unless we specify each country. In Canada (which, is a much larger producer/exporter of the crop):

No. 1 = 40lb+ No. 2 = 38lb+ No. 3 = 36lb+ No. 4 = 34lb+ No. 5 = feed/light weight. ChristianH158 (talk) 14:32, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Christian's Re-write - Comments

Christian, you asked me at WikiProject Agriculture to take a look and comment. I hadn't taken a close look at the article prior to your re-write, so without going back and looking at the history, I have a limited picture. In any case, Great Job, I think we need to do similar jobs with all of the Ag related articles. Here are some comments, I'll detail things here and avoid marking up the page with calls for cites or section banners saying to copyedit something. I've numbered the paragraphs for discussion purposes:

  • 1. Oat#Cultivation - can we get some more cites, either gov't documents or OED or something for these definitions. Also this makes me think we may want to take a look at the way Corn redirects to Maize rather than to Corn (disambiguation) and this latter page may need to be adjusted a little to agree with what we have here.
  • 2. Oat#Uses - looks good but needs more cites and could use some expansion, particularly in the area of Oat#Livestock Feed. I'll try to take a look at some references I have.
  • 3. Oats#Soluble Fiber - mostly commonly known claims about the health benefits but definitely in need of some cites. Probably all things that can be found on the web, like the FDA final rule, etc.
  • 4. Oats#Celiac Disease - Well cited, with a noted exception. Very informative. Not too technical for the average reader. Very good.
  • 5. Oats#Agronomy - reads well and has good info, but needs cites very badly throughout all subsections.
  • 6. Oats#Fertilizer Requirements - Why is the application rate for N given but not for P and K? Also, this would be a good place to give an application rates for manures.
  • 7. Oats#Harvesting - I've redlinked two items that need explanation or articles (or at least links to parts of an article) or links to Wiktionary. As for the whole section, this needs cites and I think we could expand the historical paragraph. Are these techniques still used anywhere in the world?
  • 9. Oats#Processing - Wikify and cite. Otherwise, very good. I'm not sure we've really covered Oats as a livestock feed though with a single sentence under uses and no mention here.
  • 10. Oats#Trivia - I think this could be worked in to the article with some effort.

I know that's a lot of commentary. Overall, the article looks very good. I'm intentionally being picky. I'll try to work on some of these myself so don't go telling me {{sofixit}} anyone. But Christian asked. Feel free to markup the above with strike-outs, additional comments, etc. or to put {{done}}'s next to them when their complete.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 04:16, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, Doug! For the agronomy section, most of the information came either from personal experiences (the method it's seeded in, harvested with, etc, etc). However, I got the fertilizer info from the Manitoba Agriculture and Rural Initiatives Field Crop Production Handbook. I'll have to cite that as soon as I have a bit of free time. I did change "dummy head" to "pickup header". I don't know who ever started the "dummy head" thing, but we (farmers) all know it as a "pickup header", and that's what all documentation calls it too...
On point #7, with regards to moisture @ harvest, that's from the same handbook (and Yield Manitoba, 2006 edition). With regards to how the combine does it, that's pretty much common knowledge... No one uses those threshing machines / binders anymore, other than historical re-enactments.
On point 9, could you explain what "wikify" means, please? (I'm still learning!) ChristianH158 04:46, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


Great, it's ok to put in what you know from personal experience as long as we can verify it and get it cites soon. I'm sure no one will challenge it as original research short term but if anyone questioned the information we'd have to cite it or they could just delete it.
Re #7 - Common knowledge among whom? I don't know that nor, I'm willing to bet, are any of the people I know, some of whom are farmers (in New England - cereal crops other than corn are not commonly grown here, and that's mostly grown on any scale only by large dairymen where I am). I haven't seen a combine in about 9 years and I've only sat in one once and that was at a dealership in Winner, South Dakota for fun! I have only a vague idea how they work. Obviously much of the workings of combines belongs at combine but a basic understanding should either be here, with wikilinks to the details on that article.
Re #9 - Wikify means to go through it and add [[ ]] where appropriate. Don't do it everywhere and not every term needs to be linked. I'll try to do some of that. I just wikified the "Scope" section at WikiProject Agriculture, which is what the edit summary "wfy" means.
That source isn't available online is it, I suppose, even in pdf format? Oh well.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:11, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


Re: #7 - Ok, I don't know if I didn't know what I was typing or if someone edited it... I had posted that about using the wording of "dummy header", as no one knows what that is... We call it "pickup headers". I'm pretty sure I didn't write that, but hey, it's been a long day!
Re: Common Knowledge - I believe I can find a "Fact Sheet" in PDF format which will backup most of what I stated, I'll find it in the morrow, if I can.
Re: #9 - Thanks, now I know what you mean! I've been adding them, more and more (see: the improved Storage section).
Nope, that source isn't online, though, I could scan it... ChristianH158 05:21, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Based on your work I've rated this "B" Class, which is pretty darned good. We need to continue to work on it though.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 16:25, 13 October 2007 (UTC)