Oat

The oat (Avena sativa), sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural, unlike other cereals and pseudocereals). While oats are suitable for human consumption as oatmeal and rolled oats, one of the most common uses is as livestock feed. Oats are a nutrient-rich food associated with lower blood cholesterol when consumed regularly. Avenins are oat gluten proteins, similar to gliadin in wheat. They can trigger celiac disease in a small proportion of people. Also, oat products are frequently contaminated by other gluten-containing grains, mainly wheat and barley. In 2021, world production of oats was 22.5 million tonnes, led by Russia with 17% of the total. The wild ancestor of Avena sativa and the closely related minor crop A. byzantina is A. sterilis. A. sterilis is a wild oat that is naturally hexaploid. Genetic evidence shows the ancestral forms of A. sterilis grew in the Fertile Crescent of the Near East. Oats are usually thought to have emerged as a secondary crop, i.e., derived from a weed of the primary cereal domesticates, then spreading westward into cooler, wetter areas favorable for oats, eventually leading to their domestication in regions of the Middle East and Europe. Rather than being a variant of common oat that separated relatively recently, analysis of sequenced genomic data of 100 oat plants from around the world provides evidence that hulled oat (A. sativa) and naked oat (A. sativa var. nuda) diverged around 51,000 years ago and were domesticated independently in the Near East/Europe and China. Oats are best grown in temperate regions. They have a lower summer heat requirement and greater tolerance of rain than other cereals, such as wheat, rye or barley, so they are particularly important in areas with cool, wet summers, such as Northwest Europe and even Iceland. Oats are an annual plant, and can be planted either in autumn/fall (for late summer harvest) or in the spring (for early autumn harvest).