Biology Researchers investigate long-lost Swiss oat variety
A forgotten Swiss oat variety is set to inspire new breeds. Information on the genetic make-up of the oat variety "Hatives des Alpes", which was once widespread in the Swiss Alps, has been incorporated into an international oat gene atlas.
30.10.2025, 12:25
SDA
This atlas, published in the journal "Nature", collects the genetic information of oat varieties and shows which genes are present in all oat plants and which are specific to individual varieties, as explained by ETH Zurich in a press release on Thursday.
"The specific genes can be of interest for breeding", explained ETH researcher Bruno Studer, who was involved in compiling the atlas, in the press release. For example, the "Hative des Alpes" variety has genes that make it resistant to certain diseases, as well as genes that make it particularly suitable for cultivation in the Alps. "If you know these genes and what they do, you can cross them specifically into another variety," says Studer.
Disappeared during the Second World War
The "Hative des Alpes" oat variety was widely cultivated in Switzerland between 1910 and 1930. It disappeared completely from Swiss fields after the Second World War.
Before its disappearance, however, its seeds were handed over to the seed library of the Vavilov Institute in St. Petersburg for safekeeping in 1925.
According to ETH Zurich, the seeds were returned to the Federal Competence Center for Agricultural Research (Agroscope) in 2012. Agroscope researchers subsequently began to propagate the oat variety.
Studer obtained seeds from this offspring for further studies. Together with his team, he grew more plants and isolated the DNA and RNA molecules from them. Finally, the researchers decoded all the genes and analyzed which of them were active in which parts of the plant - roots, leaves or flowers.
