Avena fatua
| Avena fatua | |
| Light: |  |
| Moisture: |   |
| Soil pH: | 5.6-8.4 |
| Height: | 5' |
| Blooms: | Early Summer-Mid Summer |
| Native to: | |
| Edible Rating: |  |
| Medicinal Rating: |  |
| Tea: | Yes |
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Avena fatua (common name: wild oats)
Propagation: Seed - sow in situ in early spring or in the autumn. Only just cover the seed. Germination should take place within 2 weeks.
Cultivation: Succeeds in any moderately fertile soil in full sun[1]. Prefers a poor dry soil[2]. Tolerates a pH in the range 4.5 to 6.5.
A parent of the cultivated oat, A. sativa[3][4] but the seeds are somewhat smaller and yields lower. This species could be of importance in breeding programmes for the cultivated oats (A. sativa), where it could confer drought tolerance, disease resistance and higher yields.
Oats are in general easily grown plants but, especially when grown on a small scale, the seed is often completely eaten out by birds. Some sort of netting seems to be the best answer on a garden scale.
Range: Europe to Asia. Naturalized in Britain[5].
Habitat: A common weed of arable land and waste ground[6][3].
Edibility: Seed - cooked[7][8][9][10][11][12]. The seed ripens in the latter half of summer and, when harvested and dried, can store for several years. It has a floury texture and a mild, somewhat creamy flavour. It can be used as a staple food crop in either savoury or sweet dishes. The seed can be cooked whole, though it is more commonly ground into a flour and used as a cereal in all the ways that oats are used, especially as a porridge but also to make biscuits, sourdough bread etc. The seed can also be sprouted and eaten raw or cooked in salads, stews etc.
The roasted seed is a coffee substitute.
Medicinal: The seeds are diuretic, emollient and refrigerant[13].
Usage: The straw has a wide range of uses such as for bio-mass, fibre, mulch, paper-making and thatching[4]. Some caution is advised in its use as a mulch since oat straw can infest strawberries with stem and bulb eelworm.
Pollinators: Wind
Soil: Can grow in light, medium, and heavy soils.
Drainage: Prefers well drained soil.
Seed Ripens: Late Summer-Mid Fall
Flower Type: Hermaphrodite
Heavy Clay: Grows in heavy-clay soils.
Links
References
- ↑ Huxley, Anthony. The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening. MacMillan Press, 1992.
- ↑ Rice, Graham. Growing from Seed Volume 2. Thompson and Morgan, 1988.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Schery. Robert. Plants for Man. Prentice Hall, 1972.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Hill, Albert. Economic Botany. The Maple Press, 1952.
- ↑ Clapham, Arthur and Tom Tootin, Edmund Warburg. Flora of the British Isles. Cambridge University Press, 1962.
- ↑ Chittendon, Fred. RHS Dictionary of Plants. Oxford University Press, 1951.
- ↑ Hedrick, Ulysses. Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World. Dover Publications, 1972.
- ↑ Uphof, Johannes. Dictionary of Economic Plants. Weinheim, 1959.
- ↑ Usher, George. A Dictionary of Plants Used by Man. Constable, 1974.
- ↑ Harrington, Harold. Edible Native Plants of the Rocky Mountains. University of New Mexico Press, 1967.
- ↑ Saunders, Charles. Edible and Useful Wild Plants of the United States and Canada. Dover Publications, 1976.
- ↑ Yanovsky, Elias. Food Plants of the North American Indians Publication 237. US Department of Agriculture.
- ↑ Chopra, R. Glossary of Indian Medicinal Plants. Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi, 1986.