Of all our small grain, oats are showing the most cold injury. They are a little MORE susceptible to freeze, and this is a pretty open area. You could almost see a tint across this yield the same way you mow with dull mower blades. The good news is that we are still in the tiller stage, and the growing point below the soil. The damage on the leaf tissue is not an issue, and the plants will grow out of it.
It does look like the long term forecast is for a warming trend, typical in our January’s. If we get another cold later in the growth stage, we will see yield loss. Below is a graph to determine yield loss from cold injury on wheat.
Weed Control
The freeze timing was good because it is too cold to treat with herbicides, and it’s not quite ready for our post emergent auxin herbicides (2,4-D or MCPA). Once they leaves start growing upright, they are considered full tiller. At this stage, we can put out our post emergent auxin herbicides. MCPA is a little more forgiving on the timing. We also do not want to put out any herbicides once we start jointing.
