Fall oats

Could I plant oats this week and have them get to the point where I could bale them before winter?

depends on where you live,,, Arizona,, FL, south TX sure,,,, where I am at No way
cnt

Ohio

Very doubtful. Frost should be in mid October.

I'm still going to do a acre for a experiment. But was going to do like 20. Thanks for your input.

In '08, oats in my field were harvested mid summer, timely rains, and the grain head let some grain out onto the ground, that increased population, as they will sprout a tail root and grow from my observations, + the existing oats grew back. By some time in late october, and I have photos, the oats headed out again, thinner crop, but with a decent weather opportunity, it could have been cut and baled. Not being so thick would have helped with the drying.

It may be possible, thick population, soil conditions good, they do like nitrogen, being optimistic, you could get an oat grass crop, but the results will not be predictable, could go either way. I've planted lots of oats in august for food crops, heavy population, nice green grass, but no more than a foot tall before the cold slowed them down. If conditions are right, its possible, but the yield may or may not be worth it, you certainly could graze it though.

Here is a patch I planted with a heavy population, no fertilizer, same field as mentioned above, planted 8-17, photo taken 9-17. From this point they could get at least another month of grow time, but the weather has to be ideal, sun is not so strong, cooler temps and its a cool weather crop, not much to bale here unless you can cut real close to the ground, with the rocks here, that would be foolish.

They're a cool season crop,so I'd give it a try. Let us know how it works.

It can work, and has been used for an emergency forage in the past. You should NOT plant oats harvested last month as seed. Get some seed that has been through a winter. Oats, like all cereals needs to vernalize, or go through a winter before it will reach maturity. Wheat and rye sprout in the fall, but then must go through a winter to get ripe. Oats needs the same... but the winter part is when oats is usually in the seed form yet. A lot of folks learned this the hard way in 2012, and were looking for emergency forage sources!

It might work. As mentioned, frost may be a factor but oats will take a light frost and still be viable. It almost takes a good freeze to kill oats. I've started alfalfa this time of year with an oats cover crop and it often is late November before there is a killing frost for the oats, and long after the growing season for everything else has already come to a close. Mike

Not here, but maybe wherever you are?

Paul

Interesting. But if they're not going to have time to mature anyhow, what's the difference in this case?

Are you chopping corn and looking for something to throw in for a quick baleage crop? Oats may work, but if there is an early frost you're screwed. Tritical may work better, at least it will winter over if you dont get to it this fall (like wheat), plus it will out yield oats for forage. You can plant it now and get a nice crop off of it next may, then plant corn, beans, or whatever. Just a thought.

I was told the stuff didn't even grow at all... which explains a lot of why wheat seems to grow where the combine threw a little over, but oats doesn't seem to have this problem.

Volunteer oats grow very well here. Any oat, no matter how light, will grow behind the combine. They seem to be a much more robust plant than the spring ones! Maybe it's because they aren't as thick.

Even if you do not get frost until late October or early November, how would you cure them in such cool weather and limited sun?

I believe that there is a vanity of winter oats that can over winter and produce a spring crop. I have never tried to grow them and I have no idea where you could get the seed . Just use Google>

You raised a very good question here - I'd think even with ideal weather it still would be a real challenge.

I plant Spring Oats in deer plots for Fall been planting them now for about a month they don't ever get as tall as they do when planted in the Spring maybe Winter oats are different.The are a very good deer plot plant especially when mixed with turnips and
Crimson Clover.The oats Winter kill while the turnips and Crimson Clover will grow and bloom next Spring.

It would be silage bales

No corn, just need something besides corn for or 3 pigs.