Production

Spring oats harvested for grain currently are not of major significance in Croatia. Acreage planted to this crop and production have been falling steadily for the past ten years. The Central Bureau of Statistics reported harvested oat acreage stood at 16000 ha in 1996.  Mean yield was 2.43 t/ha, so the State production was about 39529 t.  Small amounts of crown rust and barley yellow dwarf occurred, but neither did significant damage to the crop.  Cereal Leaf Beetle continues to be present and caused some damage to the crop over the entire state.

Cultivar

Acreages of oats grown by Certified Seed Growers in 1997 have the following distribution:
 

The cultivation area of the Bc Institute Zagreb entries has increased during the last five years. Both cultivars have shown exceptional resistance to lodging and shattering, as well as good quality.

Breeding

A limited cultivar development program started at the Bc Institute Zagreb in 1985. The oat improvement objective is to develop mid-season high yielding and better grain quality cultivars that are tolerant to the most important diseases (crown rust, powdery mildew, septoria leaf blotch and BYDV).  Cultivars released during recent years (Baranja, Istra, Kupa, Mura) by this Institute were developed from different crosses between Avena sativa genotypes. A total of 300 plots were evaluated in 1997; 50 percent of the plots were devoted to early generation breeding material, and 50 percent devoted to replicated yield trials. Three elite test lines, Bc-6190, Bc-6206 and Bc-6269, are being evaluated for possible release (Table 1).

Table 1. Performance of the new breeding lines of at Zagreb, Croatia