The thousand grain weight (TGW) of oats is much lower than normal this season and, as a result, the seeding rate should be revised and calculated accordingly.
Goldcrop’s Donal Fitzgerald spoke to AgriLand recently and stated that farmers should be adjusting their seed rates this season.
“The TGW of oats is a good bit lower than normal, so it will give growers the opportunity to reduce seed rates and stretch a tonne of seed a bit further.
“Farmers probably have it in their head that they’ll sow 10-11st/ac of oats, but we’ve seen some samples coming off the plant and the TGWs are only in the mid-30s.
So, even if you were to sow 400 seeds/m² of oats, you’d only be sowing somewhere around 9st/ac of seed.
“9st/ac is plenty, especially if it’s going in now in good order and you have high germination on the seed, so you should get a very good take.”
As winter seed is short on the ground, it is important to calculate the correct seed rate.
Donal also advised farmers to avoid sowing oats before October 15.
Calculating seed rate
When calculating seed rate, you will need to know the target plant population (plants/m²), the TGW of the seed and the estimated plant establishment percentage.
Seed rate can be calculated using the equation below.
