Forage oat ( Avena sativa L.) an important transitory crop for feeding animals in Peruvian highlands

The main objective of this research was to analyze different institutional data bases related to harvested area, yield and production of forage oat crops, from 2017 to 2022, at regional and country level. For this purpose, statistical data information was taken from 14 regions where oat is cultivated in Peru. The current research had a non-experimental quantitative approach, by using the data provided by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática (INEI) and the Ministerio de Desarrollo Agrario y Riego (MIDAGRI). Collected data was organized in a group of spreadsheet of Excel 365, after that the same software was used for data processing and analysis. Results showed that oats had the greater sown area among transitory crops in the country. During the analyzed data period, Puno region increased its forage oat area harvested by 16.31 % (68 040 ha in 2017 to 79 139 ha in 2022) and obtained the highest mean yield (28.32 t.ha -1 ) and production (2 138 637.62 t) that the other regions and it mainly produced 80.12 % of country production (2 669 276.67 t) of fresh forage.


Introduction
Green forage constitutes a cheap and valuable source of energy (Kanwal et al., 2022), which covers the nutritional requirements demanded by the various breeds.In this context, Avena sativa L. constitutes an essential food source for cattle and other species (Gutiérrez et al., 2021), representing a good option in the face of reduced forage supply (Campuzano et al., 2020), being also a sustainable alternative for livestock production (Torres et al., 2020).
Forage oat (Avena sativa L.) is an annual crop classified into the Poaceae family, native to Western Europe.It.has a vertical growth from a basal rosette.Individual plant produces numerous stems which can reach more than 150 centimeters in height (Martínez, 2020).As a temporal cropping, oat adapts very well to the different environmental conditions at Peruvian highlands where it is grown basically for green forage for feeding grazing animals, hay forage, silage, grain and balanced feed (Espitia et al., 2012;Mamani & Cotacallapa, 2018).
In Peru, forage oat is sown along 14 of the 26 regions in the country lands (Ministerio de Desarrollo Agrario y Riego [MIDAGRI], 2020), especially during the dry season or when rainy season is delayed and animals demand for food.According to Alejo et al. (2020), the low water availability determines a reduction of primary production of forage oat yields.For this reason, cropping oat is a good alternative resource to fill the food demand for dairy cattle in the highlands (Mamani & Cotacallapa, 2018).
In the central Peruvian highlands, forage oat is conserved as haymaking to obtain feed for livestock during the dry season because of the good biomass yield and nutritional content (Noli et al., 2017).This is because of water scarcity affects the plant development of several forage species used as fresh fodder by small farmers in the Andes of South America (Contreras et al., 2020).Forage oat yields vary, due to location, genotype or variety, climatic factors, soil fertility, size of agricultural units and crop management (Sánchez et al., 2014).
The genotype-environment interaction greatly influences the yield and good quality of forage oat.Forage oat as a crop shows the potential to produce high dry matter production and high nutritional quality (Espitia et al., 2012).Fodder oats is a crop of adaptability to different environmental conditions (2500-4200 m.a.s.l).It can be established in soils with a light to medium texture (loam to silt loam) to slightly sandy (sandy loam); without drainage problems with a pH slightly acidic to neutral (5-7) (Arias et al., 2021) They report a Monthly Bulletin named "El Agro en Cifras".This document contains economic indicators related to agricultural activities to follow a monthly evolution which it allows to monitor and analyse the activities and products of the agricultural sector (MIDAGRI, 2020).
The importance of collecting agricultural data is to understand the trends in forage oat for animal feed in Peru led to analyse basic information to identify technical indicators from 2017 to 2020.This study highlights the importance of having an overview of past and current situation to establish technical proposals to improve livestock production systems in Peruvian highlands zone.

Materials and methods
The research was planned as a non-experimental quantitative approach and was focused on the systematization and numerical analysis of data obtained and its interpretation.Collecting data started from INEI´s database inside their virtual reports and interactive MS Excel Spreadsheets.Also, we used databank from the Ministerio de Desarrollo Agrario y Riego.The indicators analysed were the harvested area, the yield per hectare and the oat production.Gómez (2018), indicates that statistical information presents existing data previously collected by a researcher or institution and that, in non-experimental research, reliable sources of information must be used to develop adequate research.
Informatic equipment used were two personal computers with Windows 10 operating with system licenses; Microsoft Word and Excel 365 programs.Also, some stationery such as paper, note formats, pens and USB.
The annual production of oat was determined as follows: Production (t) = Harvested area (ha) x Yield (t.ha -1 )

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Calculation of the per cent of variation (VAR) of the harvested area, yield and production, the following formula was used: M = (∑ 2017 to 2022)/6 • Calculation of the % related (% R) to country harvested area or DM production by region, the following formula was used: % R = (M * 100)/MC.
Where: MC = mean country
YP (year 2022) = Value of yield or production oats of the current year or under study.
YP (year 2017) = Value of yield or production the oats of the reference year.

Harvested area
Oat is sown in the coldest regions in Peru, especially in valleys where other temporal and perennial forage crops are used for feeding stocking ruminants.Considering a group of fourteen regions, registered oat as an important crop in Puno where animal production becomes one of the main activities.Thus, Puno is the first region with the largest harvested area (75 070.5 ha ± 3 759.84ha; 71.56 %).The second region is Cusco (11 701.34 ± 2 937.99 ha; 11.15 %) followed by other two regions, Ayacucho (6 674.33 ha ± 1167.83 ha; 6.36 %) and Junín (5 385.49ha ± 266.05 ha; 5.13 %).Then, the four regions accumulated 94.2 % of lands sown with oat since 2017 (Table 1).
The wide range of variation in the forage oat yields per hectare in the different regions may be due to use of different plant variety or cultivar, soil fertility and climate conditions, the farm size or the crop management according to Sánchez et al. (2014).Because the difference of soil origin and natural soil fertility and fertilization programmes these produce differences yield and production responses.Also, those characters related to climate conditions reflect their production and yields on oat varieties.Forage oats can produce up to very high attitude (4000 to 4200 m.a.s.l), but with very low production because of colder air temperatures (Contreras et al., 2020).

Green forage production (GF)
Green forage is compulsory necessary for feeding animals during the whole year, especially in winter when shortage of fodder dramatically decline.The, forage oat become an important temporary feed for animals to supply green forage as conservation (hay or silage) products.In Peru, oat cultivation showed increments and reductions in green production according to the region among 2017 to 2022 (MIDAGRI, 2020;MIDAGRI, 2022).The highest green forage production of oat at country level was obtained in 2022, where Puno produced 80.12 % of the annual country production, after Cusco (7.828 %), Ayacucho (4.909 %) and Junín (3.567 %) (Table 3).The ten other regions had the lowest green production (3.576 %, all together).In 2022, among these ten regions Apurímac, Pasco, and Tacna decreased the green production, but Huánuco, Huancavelica, Cajamarca and Arequipa regions increased their oat green production compared to 2017.

Dry matter production (DM)
Dry matter yield is a directly factor related to green forage for feeding animals.Dry matter varies according to variety, soil fertility and fertilization doses, and altitude.Forage oat has, generally, dry matter in a range of 25 % to 27 % (INIA,  ).Dry matter is used to calculate the forage intake demand by animals which it is expressed as dry matter (DM) per 100 kg body animal weight so it is essential to determine it.Based on the green forage (FF) production, shown in Table 3, the annual dry matter production (Table 5) was calculated by region and country level considering 27 % from green oat production.