Abstract: To understand the status of nutritional quality of Chinese naked oat (Avena sativa L.) cultivars used in oat production, we collected 58 samples of 38 cultivars from six major production areas in China, which were harvested from 2007 to 2009. The nutritional compositions, including grain moisture, crude protein, crude fat, crude fiber, β-glucan, and starch, were analyzed and compared among cultivars, planting sites, and harvest years. These quality parameters varied greatly among cultivars. The content of crude fat had the largest variation coefficient, which was 21.38%. In contrast, starch content had the least variation among cultivars with the variation coefficient of 6.23%. Oleic acid and linoleic acid were the main components of unsaturated fatty acids in oat oil and their proportions were similar, showing a roughly 1:1 ratio. Moreover, there were differences of contents of oleic acid and linoleic acid among cultivars. In the amino acid components, sulfur amino acids (consisted of methionine and cysteine) had the largest variations among cultivars. The integrated quality of oat samples from Gansu Province was higher than that form other planting sites due to its higher contents of protein, β-glucan, linoleic acid, and lysine. Planting year had less effect on nutritional quality of oats compared with cultivar and planting site. According to cluster analysis, a few cultivars with rich β-glucan, protein, linoleic acid, lysine, or sulfur amino acid were screened out, which were propitious to oat breeding and rough material selection in oat processing industry.

Key words: Oat, cultivars, Planting site, Nutritional quality, Variation