The University of Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnerships (MCAP), is addressing the role of oats and other small grains as part of its Risk to Resilience program, said MCAP Extension Educator Katie Black.

“We want to help farmers adapt their operations to changing and extreme weather patterns, but also talk about whole-farm planning for resilience,” she said. “Oats provide a good pathway for talking about diversification because of their potential economic and environmental benefits. They’re a timely example, given the market opportunities and general support for them developing in the state.”

Oats might also help reduce nitrate runoff and leaching when used as a third crop in a traditional corn-soybean rotation or as a fall cover crop. According to Extension Educator Mary Nesberg, research shows that fields planted with small grains can reduce nitrate concentration in drainage water by up to 50% compared with traditional two-crop systems. Furthermore, farmers who are also underseeding their oats with medium red clover are taking nitrogen credits of around 75 pounds per acre for the following year’s corn crop.

“Here in southeastern Minnesota, the more we can do to decrease nitrogen rates, the better it is for our groundwater,” Nesberg said.

As a fall cover crop, oats offer special benefits: unlike a common cereal rye cover crop (which survives the winter and must be killed with an herbicide in the spring), oats grow quickly in the fall, soak up nitrogen, and then die naturally when the temperature drops, making for easier spring planting.

To learn more about the value that planting oats can bring to your farm, read the article “Opportunity Knocks for Oats in Minnesota” on Cover Crop Strategies.