🌾 Oats
Field Crops · growing reference
| Days to maturity | 50 days – 100 days, by type |
|---|---|
| Germination | 7 days |
| Planted as | lb |
| Water | ~0.75–1.2 in a week |
When to plant
In USDA zone 6, for example: Plant around Mar 18 — as soon as the ground can be worked.
| Spring | Fall | |
|---|---|---|
| Zone 3 | Apr 17 | Aug 6 |
| Zone 4 | Apr 9 | Aug 11 |
| Zone 5 | Mar 29 | Aug 24 |
| Zone 6 | Mar 18 | Sep 5 |
| Zone 7 | Mar 4 | Sep 26 |
| Zone 8 | Feb 15 | Oct 11 |
| Zone 9 | Jan 23 | Oct 26 |
Dates are the typical window for each zone's average frost dates — your own last frost can differ by a couple of weeks. Zone 10 and warmer is effectively frost-free: plant to the season, not the frost. Southern Hemisphere: shift six months.
Oat Uses
- Grain · 100 days · 15–30 lbs/plant — Run to ripe grain — oatmeal, feed, and straw; hulless oats for food. Spring-sown.
- Forage · 60 days · 100–200 lbs of hay/plant — Cut for hay or graze at boot — soft, palatable; often drilled with field peas.
- Cover · 50 days · 30–60 lbs of green manure/plant — Fast fall biomass and a nurse crop; a late sowing winterkills into a free dead mulch up North.
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