Cover Crop - Oats

Avena sativa

Oats are a cool-season annual cereal grass that originated in the Fertile Crescent from its wild ancestor, Avena sterilis. Oats make a great cover crop whether you are looking to add biomass to your soil or offer forage to your animals. Its extensive fibrous root systems excel at erosion control and its upright growth habit can serve as a natural trellis for legumes. Oats suppress weeds and take up excess nutrients to hold them in place until your next crop is ready to absorb them as the oats decompose. Avena sativa, also known as common oats, is also used to make oatmeal, rolled oats, and milky oats! Oats typically grow 12-36 inches, sometimes even taller. Oats grow best in cool, moist conditions. Quick to germinate and mature given adequate moisture, oat seed can be sown in spring or fall. Broadcast the oat seed, rake them in shallowly, and keep the soil moist for rapid emergence.

Oats will winter-kill in much of zone 7 and colder, so if you plan on using it as a fall cover crop, we recommend sowing in late-summer or early fall, 6-10 weeks before your area’s average first frost. Once killed by hard frost, it can be left to act as a mulch to continue suppressing weeds, insulating the soil microbiome, and protecting the soil from erosion until spring at which point you can plant directly into the mulch if using no-till methods. It will not regrow in the spring like Winter Rye. In zones 8 and warmer where oats are likely to over-winter, when you are ready to terminate the cover crop, mow it to leave it on the surface as a mulch or till it in to incorporate it into the soil. Wait at least two weeks after killing the oats to plant your next crop. The same goes for spring plantings. Seeding rate: 4 pounds per 1,000 square feet.

For more information on all things cover cropping, check out our Learn to use Cover Crops page.