150 



OATS 



sometimes average five feet. The stem, is hollow with four to five 

 nodes and as many leaves. Leaves ordinarily are about one-half inch 

 in width, but there are certain robust late varieties with leaves one 

 inch wide. As compared with wheat the oat plant bears an average 

 of at least one more leaf per plant, and the leaves average larger in 

 size. The stem of oats will " straighten up " well after being blown 

 down by severe storms, if it is not too mature. This is accomplished 

 by bending at the lower joints. 



Tillering or Stooling. The number of stems from a seed will 

 vary with (a) soil conditions and (b) rate of planting. The tillers 

 come from latent buds at the base of the stem. If single oat plants 

 be planted one foot apart in a rich garden soil and given good care, 

 from ten to fifteen buds may be stimulated to develop into as many 

 stems. However, if the plants be crowded, as under field conditions, 

 one plant to every one or two square inches, very few tillers develop. 

 This is well illustrated by some data secured at the Nebraska Experi- 

 ment Station where oats were sown for two years at rates varying 

 from 4 to 16 pecks per acre. The following table shows the number 

 of stems to 100 plants. 2 



Rate of Seeding and Tillering 



Here we see that for the thick planting only 22 plants in 100 had 

 more than one stem, while in the 4-peck rate of seeding each plant 

 had from 2 to 3 tillers. 



In cold clay soils oats seldom tiller much even when sown thin. 

 For example, in Scotland six bushels of seed are sown per acre, as the 

 plants tiller very little even if sown thinly, due to the cold wet soil. 



Description of Oat Spikelet. The various types of oat panicle 

 have already been described. The oat spikelet normally bears 



2 Nebraska Experiment Station Bulletin, 113, p. 10, 1910. 



