Eric Madsen farms with his family near Audubon, Iowa on organic and transition ground. For seeding oats each spring, he uses a base rate of 1.2 to 1.4 million live seeds per acre.
Adjusting seeding rates: “Generally for oats, low germination is not a problem, but you want to take note of the germ percentage when calculating seeding rates,” he notes. If they end up planting later, like the middle of April in Eric’s region, he’ll increase his seeding rate to 1.5 million live seeds per acre to encourage less tillering. Eric uses the same seeding rate with or without an underseeding, but says, “if your end goal is a 2- or 3-year alfalfa stand you may want to lower your seeding rate by 30 percent.”
