Where have your oats been before you chuck them your breakfast bowl, and is there a chance you're actually eating critters as well?
Photo: 123rf
From late summer the harvest season for cereals begins, and it only goes through into Autumn.
Joanne Drummond, senior researcher from the Foundation for Arable Research, says that short window for harvesting means for the rest of the year the cereals, like oats, need to be stored somewhere.
“Which is pretty important when you think you like to eat your oats all year round and we’re actually only harvesting at one point.”
She says ensuring that a grain maintains its quality while in storage is really important.
In the past grain stores were small and localised but now they’re much bigger – grains are kept in 200-400 tonne silos.
Drummond and her colleagues are currently researching the process of grain storage and the species that live in stored grains. The last time anyone did in-depth work in this field was in the 1970s, she says.
“We’ve found some really interesting, quite different sounding little creatures out there but for the most part we’re finding these sawtoothed grained beetles (like in the video below) … and book lice.”
Jesse Mulligan asked Drummond, are organic rolled oats guaranteed to be insect-free?
“For an organic producer, for the most part, their actual strategy for controlling them (insects) is going to be the same as a conventional grower."
The foundations lie in really good storage hygiene, she says.
“If we think about what we’re trying to control, we’re actually supplying the insects with a food source and we are controlling that.”
It means pressure washing the silo, getting any existing grain from the previous season out before stocking it with the new season's harvest.
“A couple of handfuls [of grain] is enough to sustain a small population.”
The insects can also walk from one silo to another, so any neglected silo can have an infestation that then infests grain in another silo. They won’t however, head to the field, she says.
Photo: Supplied
Chemicals are the last line of defence, says Drummond.
When grain is harvested, the temperature can change from field to silo. “And when you’ve got a hot sweaty grain mass, the humidity increases, and you start getting condensation and that’s perfect conditions for pests to really get a hold on.” Aeration is important to control this, she says.
The warmer it is, the faster they reproduce.
So, should you put your oats in the freezer? If it works for you, Drummond says "go for it".
