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Three phases of oat harvest in Minnesota

There are three phases of oat harvest in Minnesota. Doug Holen with Minnesota Extension specializes in small grains and forages. He says the first stage began about two weeks ago.

“We saw a lot of oats come off as forages.  That is in light of a lot of oats planted this year; what I think to be the most oats I’ve seen planted in a long time.  But also with the winter-kill in alfalfa that we saw last winter.”

The latest Crop Progress Report showed 11 percent of the oat harvest was complete as of Sunday. Holen tells Brownfield phase two is swathing.

“A lot of it cut has been laid down, or is going to get laid down.  There has been a lot of difficulty with that because of all the lodging this year with the wind and heavy rain events that (have come through) the last two weeks or so.”Because lodging is occurring, Holen says the key going into oat harvest is to know when physiological maturity is.

“Which would be comparable to black-layer in corn.  That’s when the kernel has all the starch that it’s going to have and it’s a dry-down process thereafter.  If you do something swathing-wise before that, then you’re going to have reduced test weights.  That affects the quality and yield at the same time.”

The third and least common component of oat harvest is straight cutting with a combine, and Holen says that is yet to come for most farmers in the state.