Relative performance of oat (Avena sativa L.) varieties for their growth and seed yield

Deficit of the feed and fodder availability of the desired quality has been considered as the major bottleneck in harnessing the potential of the livestock sector in India. With the objective to find out the suitable variety of oat for getting maximum seed yield, a field experiment was conducted during rabi season of 2007 to 2008 at JNKVV, Jabalpur (MP). The treatments consisted of six varieties of oat (Kent, UPO 2005-1, NDO-1, JO 2003-78, OS-6 and JHO-822). The results showed that the variety NDO-1 produced the highest number of tillers/m2, panicle weight and 1000 grain weight which resulted into higher seed yield (3.64 t/ha) than other varieties followed by Kent (3.52 t/ha) whereas, the variety OS-6 recorded lowest (2.86 t/ha) but its variation with JO 2003-78 (2.95 t/ha), UPO 2005-1 (3.10 t/ha) and JHO-822 (3.18 t/ha) was not significant. The straw yield was higher under variety OS-6 (10.62 t/ha) compared to other varieties. Growth parameters such as crop growth rate, relative growth rate and leaf area index were superior for variety NDO-1. NDO-1 recorded highest benefit-cost ratio (2.84), which was due to high gross as well as net monetary returns obtained.   Key words: Avena sativa L., benefit-cost ratio, forage dry matter, oat varieties, net monetary returns, yield.