Bonnett, O.T.

Dungan, George Harlan

IDEALS @ Illinois

Better yields of spring oats with better varieties

Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship Repository

t,. 
Better Yields 
of SPRING 
lVl A 
tWt 
2194 
With Better' Varieties 
By G. H. Dungan and 0 . T. Bonnett 
I MPROVEMENT in oat varieties during the past few years has been as spectacular as the recent improvement made in corn with the develop-
ment of hybrids. The new varieties best adapted to Illinois exceed Columbia, 
which was until a few years ago the most popular variety, by many bushels. 
For instance as a three-year average in northern Illinois tests the yields of 
Vicland wer~ 18.1 bushels more per acre than the yields of Columbia. 
Oats are an essential farm crop not only because of their grain and straw 
but also because they fit into the crop rotation and are one of the best com-
panion crops for small-seeded legumes and grasses. The present decline in 
acreage can be offset to a large extent by the use of improved varieties. 
Best V arieties for Different Sections 
Distinctly superior varieties of oats are now available for planting in 
Illinois. A purchaser of seed oats can avoid the less desirable varieties being 
offered for sale by relying on tests such as are reported here. 
The ranking of the varieties in the following tables is based on yields of 
the last three years only, since those are the only years the newer varieties 
have been grown in the Illinois drill-plot tests. 
Northern Illinois. On the Mt. Morris field in northern Illinois the 
varieties rank in .the following order according to average acre-yield for the 
years 1941-1943. 
bu. 
1 c. I. 3337* .. .. ... 62.0 
2 Vicland ........ .. 61.6 
3 Boone . ... .. .. .. . 61.4 
4 c. I. 3607* ....... 61.3 
5 Tama ..... ... ... 59 .8 
6 C. I . 3336* ...... ; 59 . 3 
bu. 
7 Marion .......... 53.3 
8 Hancock . . . . . . . . 48 . 3 
9 Erban ......... . . 45 .0 
10 Vanguard . ...... 43.7 
11 Columbia . . . . . . . . 43 . S 
12 Iowar., ......... 40.7 
bu. 
13 Sixty-Day ....... 38.7 
14 Cartier ..... .. ... 38 .5 
15 Legacy .......... 27.8 
16 Eagle . . . . . . . . . . . 24 . 3 
(*Experimental strains-no seed 
available commercially) 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS • AGRICULTURAL EXP ERIMEN T STATI ON 
CIRCULAR 570 January 1944 Urbana 
~~ 
\\'\ 1~ 
Illinois 
Central Illinois. At Urbana the average acre-yields for the three years 
1941-1943 were as follows: 
bu. 
1 c. I. 3310* ... . ... 70 .1 
2 Tama ..... .... .. 69 .5 
3 Vicland .. ..... .. . 67 .0 
4 c. I. 3337* . . . . ... 66.0 
5 Marion .. ... .. . . . 65.6 
6 c. I. 3607* . . . . . . . 64 .9 
bu. 
7 Boone . ... . ...... 64 .0 
8 c. I. 3336* . . . . . . 63 . 1 
9 Vikota . . . . . . . . . . 61 . 7 
10 Iowar . . . ... . . . .. 56.6 
11 Vanguard .... . . . 55 . 9 
12 Columbia. . . . . . . . 55 .4 
bu. 
13 Hancock . . . . . . . . 53 .8 
14 Cartier . .. . .. ... . 52.7 
15 Erban . .. .... .... 51 .5 
16 Eagle ... . . .. . . .. 36 .6 
17 Legacy ... . . .... . 35.9 
Southern Illinois. Average acre-yields at Alhambra during 1942 and 
1943 place the varieties in the following order. 
bu. 
1 Tama .. . . ....... 28 .0 
2 c. I. 3310* . . ..... 25.7 
3 Marion . ......... 24 . 6 
bu. 
3 Columbia. . . . . . . . 24 . 6 
5 F ultex ..... . .... 22 . 5 
6 Vicland . . . . . . . . . 22 .4 
*Experimental strains-no seed is available commercially. 
Description of Varieties 
bu. 
7 Boone . . ......... 21 .0 
8 Hancock ...... .. 16.3 
9 Vanguard . .. . .. . 15.1 
Yields alone are not a complete index to the desirability of an oat variety. 
Some other characteristic, such as resistance to lodging, is often more 
important than a high yield. The descriptions given here will supplement the 
data on yields. 
Boone, Cedar, Cont rol, Tama, V icland, V ikota, C. I. (Cereal Investigation) 
3310, C. I. 3336, and C. I. 3337 are selections from a cross made by the U.S. De-
partment of Agriculture between Victoria, a variety resistant to crown rust and 
smut, and Richland, which is resistant to stem rust. Similar in appearance and 
growth habits, these varieties have a short, fine, stiff straw and are resistant to 
crown rust, stem rust, and smut. They ripen a few days later than Columbia. 
Their yellowish-white grain is of good quality. Vicland was distributed by the 
Wisconsin Station; Tama, Boone, and Control by the Iowa Station; Cedar by 
the Nebraska Station; Vikota by the North Dakota Station; and C. I. 3310, 
3336, and 3337 are not yet released. 
Hancock, Marion, and C. I. 3607, being moderately tall, are especially well 
suited to the poorer soils, where varieties with shorter straw might not grow tall 
enough to harvest readily. Hancock and Marion are selections from a cross be-
tween the smut-resistant variety Markton and the rust-resistant Rainbow. C. I. 
3607 is from a cross between two strains, one of which was developed from a 
cross between Markton and Rainbow, the other from a cross between Victoria 
and Richland. These crosses were made in investigations carried on coopera-
tively by the Iowa Station and the U. S. Department of Agriculture. 
Marion is onl moderately resistant to lodging, whereas Hancock is notably 
so, being fully as resistant as Vicland, Tama, and Boone. C. I. 3607 is between 
the two in lodging resistance. All three varieties produce gr~in of excellent 
quality, being high in test weight and low in percentage of hull. Marion and 
C. I. 3607 are white; Hancock, yellow. 
Iowar and Sixty-Day, early maturing white oats, are susceptible to disease 
and on productive soils inclined to lodge. Oats of this type have been largely 
replaced in Illinois by the higher-yielding rust- and smut-resistant varieties. 
Richland, a selection from Sixty-Day, is resistant to stem rust. It has a yellow 
kernel and a stiff straw. A parent of Tama, Vicland, and Boone, it is not now 
grown to any extent in Illinois. 
Columbia is an early tannish-gray oat, susceptible to crown rust, stem 
rust, and smut, but high yielding and of good quality in years when rust is not 
prevalent. Its straw is medium-long and lodges badly when fully ripe. It was 
selected by the Missouri Station from Fulghum. 
Cartier, Eagle, Erban, Legacy, and Vanguard are white oats that ordinarily 
mature too late to yield well in Illinois. Eagle and Legacy are especially late. 
In 1943.~ at Urbana these varieties were much more heavily infested with corn 
borer than were other varieties. Vanguard is the only one in this group that is 
resistant to disease and it resists stem rust only. Vanguard and Erban give the 
best grain yields. 
Varieties for straw. Most of the varieties that give high yields of grain are 
below average in yields of straw. Cartier, Eagle, Erban, Hanc~ck, Legacy, 
Marion, C. I. 3607, and Vanguard are above average. 
Recommended Growing Practices 
Plow cornstalk land. Even tho oats do fairly well on unplowed land, 
to seed them without plowing is unwise. Turning the cornstalks under will 
help to hold the European corn horer in check and will also help to increase 
the oat yields, which are usually about 3 bushels higher on plowed land. This 
is especially true if plowing can be done in the late fall or early spring so 
that oats can be seeded in good time. If plowing is delayed, it may be best 
to sow soybeans instead of oats. 
F ollow soybeans with oat s. On farms where soybeans are grown, a 
rotation of corn, soybeans, oats, and clover is desirable. The cornstalks can 
be plowed down for soybeans, and the oats can be seeded without plowing 
when they follow a bean crop. In areas where it is hard to get a stand of 
clover in oats following soybeans, the ground should be stirred as little as 
possible in the seeding operations~ The oats may be sowed with a disk drill, 
for instance, without any previous working of the soil. 
Seed with a drill. Drilling saves seed and usually gives higher yields 
than broadcasting. If seed is drilled, 8 pecks should be used to the acre. If 
broadcasted, 10 to 12 pecks are better. When a legume is sowed in the oats, 
the ?est rate is 6 pecks of seed oats to the acre if drilled and 8 to 10 pecks 
if broad casted. • 
Treat seed. Seed treatment is advised for all oat varieties that are 
susceptible to smut. Not only is it cheap and good insurance against smut, 
but in some years it has the added value of controlling some other diseases. 
If New Improved Ceresan dust is applied some weeks before the seed is to 
be sowed, no more than ;4 ounce should be used for a bushel of seed. For 
smut-resistant varieties, seed treatment is not so important, and unless it can 
be done without much trouble and expense, it probably will not be worth 
while. If, however, the oats are cleaned and treated in one operation, the 
extra cost of the disinfectant will doubtless be more than repaid. 
Sow early. Moderately early seeding is recommended for oats. The 
middle of March is not too early for central and southern Illinois, nor the 
first of April for northern Illinois. Extremely early seeding sometimes 
results in weak, uneven; or poor stands, but seeding too late usually reduces 
yields more than seeding too early. 
Harvest with a binder or combine. Harvest the ripened crop with a 
binder and thresh it with a regular small-grain separator; or harvest with 
a windrower and follow with a pick-up combine when the grain is dry enough 
to bin. Harvesting may be done directly with a combine, but in that case 
great care must be taken to prevent heating and molding of the grain 
in the bin. 
Soil for oats not often fertilized. Soil-treatment materials are seldom 
applied directly for oats; most plans call for such materials to be applied . 
ahead of corn and wheat. 
1 943 YIEL~S OF OATS IN TESTS ON THREE FI~LDS 
(The percentage yields for each field are. obtained by dividing the yield of 
each variety by the average yield of the whole field.) 
MT. MORRIS URBANA ALHAMBRA 
Average (north) (centra l) (south) 
Variety percentage Percent Percent Percent yield Bushels of Bushels of Bushels of 
average average average 
c. I. 3337*1 .... . . . .. ... .. . 132 . 3 53 . 7 149.2 58.3 115.4 
c. I. 3971*li . . . .. ... ....... 130 . 7 59.8 166 . 1 56 . 9 112.7 26.6 113 .2 
Vicland ... . ...... . .. . ..... 127 . 5 53.8 149.4 56 .7 112.3 28.4 120.9 
c. I. 4065 *2 ..••• ••• • •• •••• 126.9 57 .2 158.9 56.8 112 . 5 25.7 109.4 
Tama ... .............. . .. 125 .3 53 .6 148 .9 58 . 6 116.0 26.1 111.1 
C·. I. 3652*3 .. ••• ••.• • •••.• 123.8 62 . 6 173 .9 52 .2 103.4 22.1 94.0 
c. I. 3336*1 . .. . . .. ... . .... 123.3 50 . 6 140.6 56.1 111.1 27.8 118.3 
c. I. 3607*' . . . . .. . . ..... .. 117.7 46.5 129 .2 53.6 106 . 1 
c. I. 4066*2 . . . .. .. . .... .. . 116 .8 59 . 0 116.8 
Boone .. ......... ... . .. ... 116 . 5 53.3 148 .1 55 .4 109.8 21.5 91.5 
c. I. 3310*1 .......... .. ... 114 .3 59.6 118 .0 26 .0 110 .6 
Vikota ................... . 108.9 55.0 108 . 9 
Marion ................. .. 105 . 1 34 .3 95 .3 57.1 113.1 25.1 106.8 
Fultex ........... ......... 98. 8 32.9 91. 4 53.3 105.5 23.4 99.6 
Columbia .. ... . ........... 94 .3 28.1 78.1 53 .6 106 . 1 23.2 98 . 7 
Erban ..... . ... . .......... 85 . 0 27.9 77.5 46.7 92.5 
Sixty-Day .... ... . ...... . . 83 .9 23. 9 66 .4 44.8 88.7 22.7 96.6 
Hancock . .. .............. . 82 . 1 28.4 78.9 46.3 91.7 17 . 8 75.7 
Iowar . • • ••• ~ ••••••••• 0 0 • 77.5 21.2 58 .9 48.5 96.0 
Cartier . 
· ······ · ······ · ·· 
76.2 21.6 60 . 0 46.6 92.3 
Vanguard .. . . ............. 67 .4 20 .8 57 .8 46.3 91.7 12.4 52.8 
Richland .... . ............. 63.6 15.1 41.9 43.1 85 . 3 
Eagle .. . .. . ....... . .. ·.·.· 33.8 5 .5 15 .3 26 .4 52 .3 
Legacy .. ....... .. .. .. . ... 29 . 5 5.5 15.3 22.0 43.6 
Average ... .. .. . ...... 36 .0 50 .5 23.5 ; ··· 
Difference necessary for 
significance ... . .. ... .. .. . 5.7 4. 2 3 . 5 
. *Experimental strains-no seed is available. 1Selection from Victoria X Richland. 2Selection 
from Iogold (Victoria X Richland). 8Selection from Bond X Anthony. 4Selection from Markton X . 
Rainbow crossed with a selection from Victoria X Richland. 5Selection from D69 X Bond. 
8:\1 - 1-44-27501 


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Better yields of spring oats with better varieties

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