What plant is wild oats? Get to know this common farmland weed
Wild oats, also known as black oat, bell oat, oat grass, etc., is an annual plant of the genus Avena in the grass family. It is usually a weed harmful to wheat and other crops, mostly growing in waste fields or farmland, widely distributed across the provinces of northern and southern China, and also found in the temperate and cold zones of Europe, Asia and Africa, and has also been introduced to North America, where the indigenous peoples used its seeds for food.
The annual fibrous roots of wild oats are rather tough. The culms are erect, smooth and hairless, 60-120 cm tall, with 2-4 nodes. The leaf sheaths are loose, smooth, or the basal ones sparsely pubescent. The ligule is transparent and membranous, 1-5 mm long. The leaf blades are flat, 10-30 cm long, 4-12 mm wide, slightly rough, or sparsely pubescent on the upper surface and margins.
The panicle of wild oats is open, pyramidal, 10-25 cm long, with angular, rough branches. The spikelets are 18-25 mm long, containing 2-3 florets, with curved, drooping stalks and swollen tips. The rachilla is densely covered with light brown or white stiff hairs, and its joints are brittle and easily broken off, with the first internode about 3 mm long. The glumes are herbaceous, nearly equal, usually with 9 veins. The lemma is hard in texture, the first lemma 15-20 mm long, with light brown or white stiff hairs on the back below the middle; the awn extends from slightly below the middle of the lemma body, 2-4 cm long, geniculate, with a brown, twisted column. The caryopsis is covered with light brown soft hairs, with a longitudinal groove on the ventral side, 6-8 mm long. Flowering and fruiting period is April to September.
Wild oats poses a serious threat to cereal crop production. In the United States and Canada, the affected area reaches hundreds of millions of acres, with annual losses amounting to 150 million US dollars, and the damage is also relatively severe in Australia, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, North Africa, and the Middle East. In China, wild oats is also widely distributed, mainly in the Northeast, Northwest, and Qinghai-Tibet regions. Wild oats prefers cool conditions, has strong adaptability, occurs quite commonly, reproduces in large quantities, and easily spreads into a disaster; combined with human factors over the past 10-plus years, the harm caused by wild oats has expanded and worsened year by year.
Wild oats is sweet in taste and warm in nature, entering the liver and lung meridians. It has the effects of tonifying deficiency, checking sweating, and stopping bleeding, and is used for spontaneous sweating, night sweats, incessant deficiency sweating, hematemesis, uterine bleeding, and other conditions, with a usual dosage of 15-30 grams. The whole plant of wild oats has effects basically the same as the fruit, and is used for hematemesis, uterine bleeding, leukorrhea, bloody stool, spontaneous sweating, night sweats, and other conditions, with a usual dosage of 15-60 grams.
When oat grass is used for grazing, because of its high sugar content, good palatability, tall plants, fine stems, and relatively large leaf mass, it is suitable for making hay after harvesting. It contains moderate crude protein, is rich in nitrogen-free extractives, and has a moderate crude fiber content; compared with other plant fiber sources, the hay has a lower neutral detergent fiber content, and is more palatable than other hays with higher neutral detergent fiber.