When I first came to Minnipa as a “green” agronomy technical officer in 1976, the use of oats was an integral part of the farming system. Farmers would say that they “sweetened the soil” as their role in the rotation assisted in cleaning up some diseases, providing good sheep feed throughout the year and establishing medics in the system.
In the last 20 years they fell out of favour due to issues such as continuous cropping, low oat grain prices, minimal new land development and a reduction in stock numbers.

I believe the time is right for oats to make a comeback in the farming system as they do offer a great deal of flexibility and profitability. Some of the factors, which are pointing to an oat revolution, include; improved oat prices, poor returns for alternative crops, evidence that a 60% crop- 40% livestock enterprise mix is less risky and more profitable and the return of livestock to the farm.

The last two years have seen oat prices up to $300/t and whilst I can’t predict that will occur every year, we could assume that due to demands for our other cereal grains, the oats prices will remain firm. If it does slump you can always dig a pit, store, and utilise them when prices rise.

Oats do offer flexibility as they can be used for grain, hay and/or grazing. Wintaroo and Wallaroo are most suited to our low rainfall environments as they offer a range of characteristics such as disease resistance, high yields, early maturity, tolerance to grazing, good early vigour and excellent hay production. Remember Wallaroo can be traded across the fence where as Wintaroo has P.B.R. and needs to be purchased from an authorised grower.

The backbone to our farming system is organic matter or  “bulk” however we see many pastures that are not contributing much in the way of bulk. By sowing or trashing in early we have seen examples of bulky oat pasture paddocks which has provided the farmer with flexibility of early grazing, hay and/or grain production with little cost involved. Whilst the “Grain & Graze” project has shown barley having a dry matter advantage I believe we need to evaluate other benefits in the rotation an oat can offer over other cereals. That major benefit is disease control. Oats will provide a break for diseases such as yellow leaf spot, cereal eelworm, haydie, pratylenchus, stem rust, stripe rust, leaf rust, barley leaf diseases, septoria and common root rot. This level of disease control is not achievable using barley as a “pasture” species.

The agronomics of growing oats is relatively easy with the level of expense proportional to the effort put into growing them. Their flexibility allows you to make decisions as to sowing time (early-dry or later-wet), fertiliser rates (none or some), sowing rates (high or low), weed control (none or some), grazing management and end use.

There are farmers who successfully use oats in the system and are a good source of information for the new comers.

In summary I suggest that use of either Wallaroo or Wintaroo, ensuring the seed source is clean and pure, sow early with minimal nutrition and increase sowing rates up to 80kg/ha to get that bulk in the system.

A bulky pasture phase of oats and medic is far more productive than a paddock of wards weed, ice plant, spear grass or Lincoln weed etc.

AUTHOR: Neil Cordon,Senior Extension Agronomist, SARDI

CONTACT: Neil Cordon,  Minnipa Agricultural Centre Telephone: 08 8680 6210, Mobile:  0427 600 266, Fax 08 8680 5020 or Email: cordon.neil@saugov.sa.gov.au for further information.