when to combine oats

I know this may be a foolish question to some but I need help determining when to combine oats.I have the nicest field of spring oats I have ever raised. I have combined oats a few times through the years but never been too sure of when to harvest.I usually wait until everything is pretty crispy. When I do that it seems that the weeds are worse and I have to watch for heating because of little green pieces of weed. I usually transfer from one gravity bed to another untill I am certain they are dry enough. I thought some of you would have a good method to determine when to harvest. The grain appears pretty dry but I see several stems that appear green at the bottom half. I sprayed the field and for now it is pretty clean but I see som weeds coming up now. Any help/advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks,Lee
 
What case collector said. Oats are more difficult to dry standing than barley or wheat, and swathing is usually a better choice. Ben
 
When I combined I used to throw preservatives on them spread over the top of the gravity box and when emptied out it mixes in . By doing this I could start combining earlier and it made great feed.
 
Throw this idea out. I had an 80 Mccormick old slow and not much capacity what I did was keep the head just under the heads then had a haybine right behind me which cut all the straw so I didn't put anymore straw through the combine then I Needed made great straw that way
 
Thanks for the replies fellas. I would love to swath them but I dont have a pickup head.Most likely I will be using my old IH80. Yep its old and slow[like me]lol. For some reason I enjoy using it! It does clog easily and that is sure no fun. Farmerwithmutt what kind of preservatives did you use. Thanks again! Lee
 
Lee, your location will likely determine the method and timing of when to harvest your oats. Fortunately, oats are one of the easiest crops to thresh. When they are ready about all they have to do is enter the combine and hit something and they will thresh. The old method I was taught was to take some heads and rub them in your hand. When the oats are ready they will rub out pretty easily. This is for standing oats, not windrowed. Once you've done it is is pretty easy to tell. Mike
 
We do it the same way mike said and usually cut about 6 inches below the grain, seems to thresh a little better when it has some straw to rub against.
 
Like the one gentleman stated, when I have weedy ripe oats, I cut high, to harvest just the oat heads, and then just take a swather/haybine/moco and cut the straw. I use straw for bedding, so I like to save it.
 
When the heads are dry enough to shell out easily in your hand, you are losing too many seeds to the ground. We always swathed our oats on the green side and let them cure in the windrow 3-4 days. That gave us the best yield (less field loss) and the highest test weight for the oats, which earned us a higher price. I think straight cutting oats must have pretty high shell-out compared to windrows.

We baled the straw, which still had some green color to it. We spread lots of the oats straw for bedding, knowing that the cattle would eat about half of that straw; it was good roughage for them.
 
As I mentioned, it depends on your location. Oats are all straight combined around here. In other places they are all windrowed. The gentleman asked how to tell when they were ready to straight cut so I told him. In my area there is negligible loss when straight cutting. Mike
 
here anyway the oats always seem to have some green in them,, as long as its not too bad they will dry fine,, I never cut above 13% moisture,,, but I am what I call a high desert climate, shots of me cuttings oats here
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Thanks for posting lee. I've never cut the oats just baled them for oat hay. I have a couple acre that I've used for a cover crop for a new hay field. I'm in central IL and I don't have a pickup head. So I should harvest them before they thresh easy in my hand? It's pretty humid here if that makes a difference
 

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