NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
June 22, 2000
The North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station at North Dakota State University is releasing Killdeer, a spring oat variety named for the county seat of North Dakota's Dunn County. Killdeer is the result of a cross that NDSU oat breeder Mike McMullen made in 1990 between experimental lines from North Dakota and Illinois. Killdeer will be subject to the 1994 amendments of the Plant Variety Protection Act, but without the Title V option.
During three years of evaluation at nine locations in North Dakota, Killdeer produced higher average grain yields than any commercial variety currently available, McMullen says. The test weight of Killdeer is similar to AC Assiniboia. Killdeer is a comparatively early maturing cultivar, with an average heading date about one day later than Jerry, another NDSU variety.
"Killdeer offers an advantage to producers in that it is an early maturing cultivar with grain-yield potential exceeding later-maturing varieties," McMullen says.
Killdeer produces medium-large kernels with white hulls. Killdeer's groat percentage is slightly greater than Jerry's, but its whole-oat protein content is slightly lower than Jerry's. McMullen says the groat lipid content of Killdeer is similar to that of Jerry. In addition, Killdeer has moderate crown rust resistance and is resistant to the prevalent races of stem rust.
In recent years North Dakota's annual oat acreage has averaged about 750,000 acres, of which producers harvest one-third for forage while they devote two-thirds to grain production. Killdeer is expected to replace acreage of Otana, a variety that producers currently plant on about 35 percent of their oat acres, says Al Schneiter, chair of NDSU's Department of Plant Sciences.
In North Dakota variety trials from 1997-99 Killdeer has outyielded Otana by 38.4 percent. Schneiter says that if Killdeer were to replace Otana on only 50 percent of North Dakota's oat acreage devoted to grain production, then the state's producers might expect to receive an additional $3 million of annual income, based on current prices for feed oats.
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Source: Mike McMullen (701) 231-8165
Al Schneiter (701) 231-8137
Editor: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136