I’ve got a question…..Why is everyone planting forage oats instead of just plain oats?

I have planted both buck forage oats and just regular coker oats and I’ve not seen a difference. As a matter of fact the oats in the basket from the other thread are just plain oats. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it was my understanding that the forage oat varieties that are commonly sold commercially were more for people in northern climate who’s cold climate would winter kill the regular oats. We don’t really see that happen here in the south so is there really a need for a more costly specialty seed? Do the forage oats do something else besides handle colder temps better?

2 dogs what you paying a bag for the deer magnet ?

They may not freeze where you hunt but where I hunt regular oats are dead and yellow by mid December. That's why I plant the more expensive forage oats.

I ran test plots side by side and the deer told me what to plant.

I ran test plots side by side and the deer told me what to plant.

Do you replace the wheat or oats with the rye or just go 100% rye?

I ran test plots side by side and the deer told me what to plant.

In a first-time plot, I use 100% grazing rye. In fact, in really poor soil, I may use 100% rye two years before switching to a wheat/oats mixture the third year.

Do tell more NightHunter......What were some of your observations? I'd be interested to here them.....

Don’t take this as harsh criticism or anything BSK but I don’t understand the reasoning for using only two years of rye and then switching to wheat. Is it just to keep down on costs by going with the cheaper wheat seed? If you looked at it from an accounting standpoint then are you really saving anything? Couldn’t our soil OM, lbs of nutrients per acre, etc... be seen as an asset in accounting terms? So if we think about it in those terms, then isn’t the rye really returning the price difference back to us but just in a different form than “cash on hand” and more in the form of an asset like a building? Wouldn't you want to continue to grow that asset? You still have the value of the asset and one could even argue that rye actually returns more real value back to our total assets. It just seems like 2 years worth of rye on a poor soil really doesn’t amount to a hill of beans long term. Yes, of course its going to make some difference but why stop there? If you don’t continue to try to improve the soil and just assume its “good” after two rye rotations……will it not revert right back to “poor” over time of we don't continue to take care of it?

So with the deer showing that they like all three oats,wheat and rye grain but just at different stages of the plants growth. Would it not be beneficial to do a three way mix with all three in it? Just asking

I used wheat for years. I switched to cereal rye last year. My plots on years when there are few acorns gets hamnered and my plots are to the ground by January. The rye is a more cold hardy plant. You will get more growth out of rye on those warm winter days than you will wheat. My hope is my plots will hold up better to heavy browsing. I've tried rape and a few other barasicas but my deer don't seem to like it much. I've tried groundhog radishes but I haven't had a lot of luck getting them to grow on my lease.