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Small Grains

Oats

Description
Oats are an inexpensive cover crop and provide a quick ground cover when fall seeded, providing weed suppression and erosion control. They typically winter-kill and provide a beautiful killed mulch for spring-seeded crops. Oats are good nutrient scavengers and work well with radishes and turnips to provide fall forage.

Management
It’s best to plant oats after wheat or a spring cover crop. Allow 6 to 8 weeks before killing frost if the oats are intended as a forage.  Disking lightly in the spring will break up the brittle residue, exposing enough soil for warmer soils. No-tilling into oats in the spring works fine. If planted in the spring, oats can be killed by spraying. Mowing and rolling work well at soft dough stage. Like rye, oats have an allelopathic effect and can cause slow growth in the following crop.

Establishment
Seed 100 lbs./A with a drill or fly into standing corn.

  • Winter hardy – this oat can be fall planted and will overwinter in southern areas.
  • Huge yields – often outproduces winter triticale and rye.
  • Esker is the best oat for grain.
  • It is a tremendous yielder, 20-30 bushels higher than Jerry.
  • Jerry is an inexpensive alternative with a good fibrous root system.
  • It has vigorous growth when fall planted and it winter-kills.