© 1997, 1998 Streamline Publications

Some have suggested that wild oats were introduced to California by Spanish Franciscan missionaries. Imagination takes us back to how that may have happened as the good Father Garcia is taking a meeting with Spanish Army Logistics Officer, Lt. Rafael and Senor Mendoza, a recent arrival from Spain. "Greetings, Father, and thanks for seeing me on short notice," said Mendoza, a seed salesman, formerly a barber, of Seville. "No sweat," said Father Garcia, "What's the deal?"		"So, Jaime, how do you like these new oats Father Garcia brought in?"
		"Horses still won't eat 'em so now it's oatmeal for breakfast, lunch and dinner. What I wouldn't give for a taco."

"I got half a galleon of grain oat seed that is perfect for your animals here at the mission. What say I let you have the whole magilla at a 20-percent discount. You like it, you tell the other monks at the other missions and make yourself a nice commission—sort of a mission commission, if you get my drift."
"Any commissions go to the missions," Garcia responded, slightly irked by the intended bribe. "But why would I want to pay for your oats anyway when we have fodder growing here naturally, for free? And I wouldn't want to plant anything that might compete with the natural grasses. You never know."
"But Father," Mendoza interjected, seeing his own commission on a shipload sale jeopardized, "these oats are primo. They got a thousand year's cultivation behind them, pure as a... uh, Franciscan's thoughts. These are domestic field oats. Escape-proof."
Fearing the loss of his own commission on the sale, Lt. Rafael interjected in a soldierly way, "Father, sir, the horses have been complaining about the food. They are used to Spanish oats and since they've been in California most have had a bad case of tourista, if you know what I mean, sir."
Perplexed, Garcia twisted strands of hair that fringed his skull like a grass skirt. He, himself, could recall seeing the animals turn up their noses when offered native grasses.
"Oh, very well," Father Garcia said finally. "We'll take the load if you throw in a cask of decent sacramental wine. These mission grapes are the pits."
Mendoza, thrilled that he had cracked the mission market, agreed to the wine and slipped a handful of doubloons into the lieutenant's hand as they left the room.
The seed peddler had been assured by his boss at Seville Feed and Seed that the seed had been tested and met the current standards of purity. "Not more than one, maybe two percent, wild oats, in the whole batch, Senor. Certainly not more than three. Don't worry, we can barely get them to grow."
The small percentage of wild oats turned out to be better adapted to California than the grain oats and, with the help of other favorable circumstances, eventually became well and widely established. Grasses such as these are now considered ineradicable.
Father Garcia was excommunicated for sowing his wild oats.

The Story Has a Moral
When a proposal is offered to introduce "native" grasses for revegetation or any other purpose we would do well to remember the fictional Father Garcia's good intentions. The use of so-called sterile hybrids has to be considered in light of seed purity realities. Hybridization does not produce 100 percent pure seed—there will be some remaining unchanged plants and intermediate forms will be created too. And even proofing seed samples using prohibitively expensive DNA testing, the bulk of the seed cannot be certified totally pure. Some industry estimates hold that a given quantity of seed may run 80 percent true-to-type, another 18 percent something in between, and 2 percent definitely the wrong stuff. U.S. agricultural seed law permits 2 percent impurity with up to 1.5 percent weed seed.
Even if seed science could reach an impossible 99.9 percent purity, plants have a way of adapting. A grass, ostensibly made sterile through elimination of all female plant seeds, has the potential to reproduce. The mechanisms that allow "sterile reproduction"—should they indeed be outside the realm of a simple lack of seed purity—aren't understood, but the evidence is growing in the field.

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