Talk:Oat

Look! What a lot of oat!

I bet the more common name is oats, not oat. ---- Frans Fowler (talk) 01:22, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

It's usually singular when speaking of the plant, and plural when speaking of food. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:41, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Oat/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 14:43, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Rollinginhisgrave (talk · contribs) 23:01, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Will start this over the next few days. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 23:01, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I will wait until spotcheck issues are resolved before moving to the next sections of review. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 04:56, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I have added some points. Some might be beyond the scope of GA, if you flag them as such we can move past them. I'm sorry I still don't have a great grasp of what goes too far with WP:GA? Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 10:21, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

• It's not an exact science. We are enjoined to cover "the main points" which seems to work well.

Comments

Leaving comments as I edit.

Prose

• far from the Middle East less weasely/delete
  • Removed.

• Oat bread often contains only a small proportion of oats alongside wheat or other cereals. integrate into celiac section.
  • Done.

• The straw can be used for making corn dollies. can you gloss?
  • Done.

• A 2018 analysis... a lot of redundancy in this paragraph. Don't need author, that there were 25 species analysed. Jargon heavy, gloss on chloroplast, AACCDD.
  • Trimmed, but the tech details are central to the analysis here.
    • Yup, I think where it stands there isn't redundancy, but I don't really know what to make of it. It's a very long sentence, too long. The (AACCDD) needs reference to Nucleotide#Abbreviation codes for degenerate bases or a gloss, or a footnote... Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 14:49, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

• hexaploid wild oat, one that has its DNA in six sets of chromosomes... diploid oat species (each with two sets of chromosomes)... tetraploid oats (each with four sets of chromosomes) can you think of a way to avoid repeating clause?
  • Trimmed slightly; the glosses have been added to make things easier for non-technical readers.
    • Better

• Genomic study by Jinsheng Nan and colleagues in 2023 more redundancy in describing studies
  • Trimmed.

• the hulled oat A. sativa and the naked oat A. Why is this the only time we hear the subject described as "hulled oat"
  • Hulled and naked are forms of the same species so only mentioned when both are in question.
    • Ah. And the naked variety is a lot rarer in agriculture I suppose? Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 14:49, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
      • Guess so.

• Genomic study by Jinsheng Nan... paragraph. Significance? Was it thought they were domesticated together? Why is that important?

• Seen in paper why this is significant. Clarification would be helpful, if it needs to be addressed at all as it is debunking an outdated belief. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 10:25, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

• • Yes. I've found that editors don't much like mentions of debunking, so it's generally best just to play things straight, this is the age, etc.

• they can be some 15 to 40 centimetres (5.9 to 15.7 in) in length, and around 5 to 15 millimetres (0.20 to 0.59 in) in width. why are all the measurements preceded with "some" rather than more natural language. Further, is there a reason it is "in length" instead of "long".
  • It just comes naturally in my diction. Not a big deal.
    • No worries Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 15:23, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

• Botanically the grain is a caryopsis: The source says "The oat fruit is a caryopsis"; are these saying the same thing?
  • Yes. For the determined seeker after truth, a caryopsis is a seed fused with its (fruit) casing, but they can find that out by clicking on the link in the text.
    • I still don't really understand if the fruit is a caryposis or the whole plant but it sounds like it's just me. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 15:23, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Content

• Oats appear to have been cultivated before they were domesticated: The source says this is the stage in domestication before domestication (1608), therefore all domesticated crops will have been cultivated. Not notable.
  • Falling short of all domesticated crops, it is still not unusual as presented in text. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 07:42, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
    • Edited.

• Cooking section should mention instant/quick oats (I think)
  • Added. This is certainly marginal.
    • Thankyou, I'll avoid any suggestions like this. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 15:23, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

• Leaf rust: I don't see this in sources, and the page it links to calls it the crown rust that affects oat plants.
  • Yes, it's the same thing. Trimmed the wording.

Sources

Random Spot Check:

• Oats appear to have been cultivated before they were domesticated. A granary from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, some 11,400 to 11,200 years ago in the Jordan Valley in the Middle East contained a large number of wild barley and wild oat grains (120,000 seeds of wild oat, A. sterilis). This quantity could not have been collected from the wild, so the find implies intentional cultivation and harvesting of the undomesticated grain, thousands of years before oats were domesticated. Domesticated oat grains first appear in the archaeological record in Europe, far from the Middle East, less than 4,000 years ago.: Source does not support thrust of text, although many key facts are accurately reported. Detailed in content section.
  • Replied up there; I note that the paper's title is "Autonomous Cultivation Before Domestication": the thrust of the paper is exactly on this point.

Your edit is perfect, addresses my concerns with presenting it as unusual. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 09:11, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

• The vigorous growth of oats tends to choke out most weeds. A few tall broadleaf weeds can create a problem, as they complicate harvest and reduce yields. These can be controlled with a modest application of a broadleaf herbicide while the weeds are still small.: Rather than try to piece together which sections of the source are supporting which sentence of the quote, could you please briefly write this out? I am concerned I am missing something.
  • OK, here are the details:
    • Source begins with "Oats are more competitive with weeds than most other crops", and a little lower down "... because of its greater tillering ability. If given the right start, an oat crop has the necessary vigour to compete against weeds", i.e. they quickly grow big and thick (with many tillers (leafy shoots) and can outcompete many weeds, so you'd hope they'd have few problems.
    • Source section "Broad-leaved weeds" (yeah, they use "broadleaf" just once, then vary the spelling, maybe this wrecked your search) says "a few [broadleaf weeds] such as capeweed, doublegee and wild radish are widespread."
    • Source section "Integrated weed management" suggests non-herbicide measures; section "Herbicides" says there are many kinds, applicable at different stages.
  • I've edited the text to say this more directly; I wouldn't say the old text was wrong exactly, but it could certainly have taken a broader view, which I've now done. Please also note my reply to your "My view" comment below.

I did see the broad-leaf spelling variation. I was more concerned with the discussion below of grass weeds, which seemed at odds with the text saying only broadleaf caused a problem. I also had a dumb confusion that I now understand from re-reading. Thanks for addressing the application while leaves are small point. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 09:11, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

• Oatmeal is chiefly eaten as porridge, but may also be used in a variety of baked goods, such as oatcakes (which may be made with coarse steel-cut oats for a rougher texture), oatmeal cookies and oat bread.

Verified

• The United States Food and Drug Administration allows companies to make health claims on labels of food products that contain soluble fiber from whole oats, as long as the food provides 0.75 grams of soluble fiber per serving.

Verified

• Oat straw is prized by cattle and horse producers as bedding, due to its soft, relatively dust-free, and absorbent nature.: Not in citation: soft, relatively dust free, prized by farmers.
  • Edited.

My view on the quality of the citations will depend on how the broadleaf is justified. If there are major issues with 3/5 sources checked not justifying text, I would prefer to fail the nom for failing the spot-check. I would like your input before I do.

• Please appreciate that with these old articles edited by many hands, and with small accretions of text perhaps added as glosses, the citations can be correct and reliable, but the text may have wandered slightly in various places. There are many reliable sources available, and the broad outlines of each section are not in doubt. I suggest we work together to improve the article rather than reaching for the red button; the article has queued for months to get here, and you in fact unknowingly grabbed it from its assigned GARC place just before the GARC reviewer was to open its GAN! So let's take things one step at a time and we'll get it sorted. That includes the 'broadleaf' wording. Many thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:23, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

If the issues are just text slipping over time, and the underlying sources appear to be RS, I'm more than happy to work through this with you. I will go through each source and flag where it needs to be re-aligned (and do the easy ones myself). I didn't think to check GARC before opening, I'll check from now on. Let's get this to GA. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 09:11, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Other source problems:

• Samuel Johnson definition being famous is cited to a 100 year old source. While it should be attributed if the source is kept (MOS:DATED), the issue at hand is the text is unsupported by the source.
  • Cited the quote directly to Johnson's dictionary, removed the rest.

• Source #9: Vogel appears quite weak, doesn't fully support the text, and the material is mostly covered in the more reliable source #7 (Kew)
  • Used Kew.

• Fix publisher Source 10 from James Hutton.
  • Appears to be correct, James Hutton Institute is the research institution hutton.ac.uk as stated.
    • They've posted the PDF on their website but their involvement seems to have been one of the entities collecting data that was used in the study discussed in the report. So not the publisher. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 15:23, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
      • Fixed.

• Oats are relatively free from diseases and pests. Source doesn't discuss pests
  • Edited, and added a brief description from a new source.

Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 04:56, 20 July 2024 (UTC)