RE: When To Plant Oats
We start getting our first frosts and freezes in September, and most years our first accumulating snow is around the 1st of October. Last year, by mid-December we had enough snow on the ground to finally get all the deer to leave the area and migrate south for the winter...none returned until April. Throughout the season my Buck Forage Oats were my best plots and the deer were in them consistantly until they left in Dec., and they were the last plots to even be utalized.
In Southern MI they are usually still green to around January and friends of mine have said they outlasted regular oats by about a month.
But again though, our first frost is usually around 9/1...we had 39 degrees just this morning, and maybe frost tonight, but they will tolerate quite a bit of cold before eventually freezing out and dying completely.
On most of my plots I mix oats 50/50 with annual rye to insure against premature freeze out and give the deer some winter/early spring nutrition if they are around. That is also a great mix to throw in your favorite perinnial with, such as clover, Imperial's Extreme, etc., so that the plots in the following spring and summer will offer great nutrtition and better plot utalization. Also, with the 50/50 mix, your perinnial only has a 50% coverage of rye to compete with, because of the freeze-out of the oats.
If your conditions are similar to mine, plant in the next week or two, if not, in lower MI, they usually plant around Labor day.
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