Can you plant oats to soon?

tomstractorsandtoys · Mar 19, 2018

I am in Southwest WI and my ground is fit to work. It was fall chiseled and this morning I hit it with a field cultivator. No seeding just oats to chop for silage. Would you go ahead and plant or wait a week or two for the ground to warm up? Seems early but the ground is in nice shape. Did pull up a little frost while working it. Tom

JMS/.MN · Mar 19, 2018

I"ve seen wheat seeded in a field that still had some frost in it. Oats likes a cold, wet Spring. When I was 17, we seeded oats on Holy Saturday, got a few inches of snow on Easter monday, and it took a month to come up. Didn"t hurt the yield tho.

jon f mn · Mar 19, 2018

Depends on the weather. If you get 2 weeks of rain and frost the seed can rot before it sprouts. Takes a lot of wet and cold tho.

paul · Mar 19, 2018

You can, but I haven't seen it happen. I don't know where that lime is. I've seeded oats where the edge of the field 5 feet the disks didn't go in, ice and frost was still where the snow was held by the grass on that field edge. Was good oats.

Toughest my oats ever looked was a few years ago, we had a very cold spring into summer here, snow. Lot of water. That was a bad year for every crop, we froze then in mid September, hurt the corn a lot, took the last bit of size off the beans. Anyhow oats was shoe high and yellow in June, I've never seen oats that poor. We planted it late, mid may, we had snow early May.

I'm not helping you tho. It's never been nice enough here to be able to plant too early for oats. That doesn't meant it can't happen tho?

Paul

rrlund · Mar 19, 2018

RayP and I both planted in late March a few years ago. They got a few inches of snow on them but came on good.

ffreeb · Mar 19, 2018

Neighbor of mine grew oats for years in upstate NY. He has told me many times that one of the best crops he ever had was in the ground by the end of March.

Bob Bancroft · Mar 19, 2018

Plant when you can.

tomNE · Mar 19, 2018

seed oats now!

NY 986 · Mar 19, 2018

Agreed. Planting oats in March is a farmer's dream come true. Any more guys seem to be stuck on the other end meaning "spring is late" and when should I cut things off?

D beatty · Mar 19, 2018

Where we are located in Indiana we would be planting now.

Bruce from Can. · Mar 19, 2018

Plant as early as you can get across the ground.

Richard G. · Mar 19, 2018

We plant oats in October, but it is a different world down here.
Richard in NW SC

Tramway Guy · Mar 19, 2018

An old-timer once told me that snow was great fertilizer for oats! That was in Sauk County, WI.

Bob Bancroft · Mar 19, 2018

I didn't get ANYTHING in the ground until June last year! Getting tired of it. I broadcast bin run oats on my "prevented plant" oat acres for cover crop. Then I hit them with glyphosate. If I had forgotten the insurance(which is a joke) and planted a full crop, they may have been decent. But harvest could have pushed right up to wheat planting. And that would worry me, as volunteer oats have been a problem in wheat.

NY 986 · Mar 19, 2018

Nothing went in until June last year here as well. The past few years have been mediocre and sometimes worse than mediocre . I don't know how much more mediocre I can afford.

Gundoctor · Mar 19, 2018

I would plant them today if ground is OK. Snow in April will help them.

WayneLee · Mar 19, 2018

You are too late

fixerupper · Mar 19, 2018

I have not seen oats hurt by seeding too early except for one spring when the ground re froze four inches down late in the season. That's a once in a lifetime occurrence. Here in northwest Iowa now would be a good time to seed oats though we don't often have the chance to seed oats in March. The goal is to get them ripe before the heat of summer comes.

Texasmark1 · Mar 19, 2018

I thought I'd plant them in September one year for a winter crop for spring harvesting, like I did with wheat. Bad idea. Freeze got them. So apparently I planted them "too early".

wd9garymn · Mar 19, 2018

Old farmer close to us and farmed light, sandy ground always said never plant oats until the ice is off the lakes--central Minn. He always had good oats crop. Grandpappy used to say, a snow on planted small grains was like a coat of manure.

JD Seller · Mar 19, 2018

I have planted oats the first week of March and they did well. I like late March for planting oats for grain. IF your going to chop them it does not make much difference. They will usually yield better if they mature before the real hot summer weather.

Bret4207 · Mar 19, 2018

Around here "too early" rarely happens. We have to wait for the clay to dry out enough to work the ground which often puts us a couple weeks late...or more. Speltz works better here as you can fall plant it.

notjustair · Mar 19, 2018

NE KS - I put my grain oats in the ground Saturday and got and inch and a half of rain on them last night. I was pretty tickled as we?ve been awfully dry in the last six months.

ss55 · Mar 19, 2018

It is already March 19. Check your local weather forecast. Unless your ten day weather forecast highs are all below 40F, or the mean temperatures will be around freezing, you will probably gain by planting as soon as you can.

Brendon-KS · Mar 19, 2018

Yeah, we were needing that drink here in Kansas - it looked like most of the state got at least something. We got right at an inch in my area of McPherson-Hesston-Hillsboro. First meaningful moisture we've had since October expect for the quarter to a half inch of ice we had last month. I thought about sowing oats on Saturday too but decided to hold off until after the rain. I want to get some early weeds and grasses sprouted first then knock them out before sowing.

JMS/.MN · Mar 20, 2018

Like N coming from the snow?

Can you plant oats to soon?

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