Cultural Control of Wild Oat - What the Research Suggests

Wild oats are starting to pop their panicles out. If you have them, it’s becoming obvious which patches have wild oat problems. It may be late to manage them with herbicide for this season, however, cultural tactics are available to adopt. 

The available cultural management tools include:

  • Chose competitive crops and varieties
    • Competitiveness: winter cereals > spring cereals = canola > pulse
  • Plant winter cereals or forage
    • Winter cereal harvest & forage cut = cut the wild oat panicle before it sets seeds
  • Higher seeding rates
    • Increase the competitiveness of a crop; and
    • Higher seeding rates = better control with a herbicide
  • Use narrower row spacings
    • Faster canopy closure = less opportunity for wild oat emergence
  • Seed shallower
    • Promote faster emergence and canopy closure = more competitive

Cultural management takes the approach of “hitting the wild oat with many small hammers”. Any one of these tactics alone is not a replacement for herbicides. However, the efficacies increase when combining the tactics together.

For example, when we compare the cultural practices and their wild oat biomass reduction:

  • 1 tactic: Double seeding rate = 2-3 fold wild oat biomass reduction
  • 2 tactics: Double seeding rate + diverse rotation = 6-7 fold wild oat biomass reduction
  • 3 tactics: Double seeding rate + tall variety + diverse rotation = 19 fold wild oat biomass reduction

See the new factsheet below on how to use cultural tactics to maximize wild oat control.

Cultural Control of Wild Oat - What the the Research Suggests

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