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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-679
Oat
Avena sativa
Oats are grown more for livestock feed than for people - about seventy percent of the crop goes to horses, cattle, sheep and poultry, and it is the traditional horse grain because its low starch-to-fibre ratio makes it easy on the gut. The rest becomes porridge, flour and pressed oil, plus a real medicinal history: oat straw has long been used to settle nerves and ease insomnia, and the grain to gently lower cholesterol. Among the cereals it is the most acid-tolerant and the most flood-tolerant, growing on heavier, wetter, more acid ground than wheat or barley will take, though a hot spell right before heading can still cut the grain yield hard.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 4
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moist · Wet
Vertical layer
Herbaceous- Soil pH
- 6–8
- Plant type
- Annual
- Mature height
- 2–4 ft
- Mature spread
- 6–12 in
- Plant spacing
- 4–12 in
- Root type
- Fibrous-deep
- Spread pattern
- None
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The deeper layer
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- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
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- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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