The oats (Avena) are a genus of 10-15 species of true grasses (family Poaceae). They are native to Europe, Asia and northwest Africa. One species is widely cultivated elsewhere, and several have become naturalized in many parts of the world. All oats have edible seeds, though they are small and hard to harvest in most species.

Ecology

Avena species, including cultivated oats, are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Rustic Shoulder-knot and Setaceous Hebrew Character.

For diseases of oats, see List of oats diseases.

Species

Cultivated oats

One species is of major commercial importance as a cereal grain. Four other species are grown as crops of minor or regional importance.

• Avena sativa – (Common) Oat, a cereal crop of global importance and the species commonly referred to as "Oats"
• Avena abyssinica – Ethiopian Oat, "a half-weed, half-crop confined to the highlands of Ethiopia.
• Avena byzantina, a minor crop in the Near and Middle East
• Avena nuda – Naked Oat or Hulless Oat, plays much the same role in Europe as does A. abyssinica in Ethiopia. It is sometimes included in A. sativa and was widely grown in Europe before the latter replaced it. As its nutrient content is somewhat better than that of Common Oat, A. nuda has increased in significance in recent years, especially in organic farming
• Avena strigosa – Lopsided Oat or Bristle Oat, grown for fodder in parts of Western Europe and Brazil

Wild oats

These species, called wild oats or oat-grasses, are nuisance weeds in cereal crops, as, being grasses like the crop, they cannot be chemically removed; any herbicide that would kill them would also damage the crop.

• Avena barbata – Slender Wild Oat
• Avena brevis – Short Oat
• Avena fatua – Common Wild Oat
• Avena maroccana – Moroccan Oat
• Avena occidentalis – Western Oat
• Avena pubescens – Downy Oat-grass
• Avena pratensis – Meadow Oat-grass
• Avena spicata – Poverty Oat-grass
• Avena sterilis – Winter Wild Oat

"Sowing wild oats" is a phrase used since at least the 16th century; it appears in a 1542 tract by Thomas Beccon, a Protestant clergyman from Norfolk. Apparently, a similar expression was used in Roman Republican times already, e.g. by Plautus. The origin of the expression is the fact that wild oats, notably A. fatua, are a major weed in oat farming. Among European cereal grains, oats are hardest to tell apart from their weed relatives, which look almost alike but yield little grain. The life cycle of A. fatua is nearly synchronous with that of Common Oat (see also Vavilovian mimicry) and in former times it could only be kept at bay by checking one's oat plants one by one and hand-weeding the wild ones when they were in flower but the grains had not ripened yet, lest the wild oats seeded themselves out. Consequently, "sowing wild oats" became a way to describe pointless activities. Given the reputation of oat grain to have invigorating properties and the obvious connection between plant seeds and human "seed", it is not surprising that the meaning of the phrase shifted towards more or less explicitly referring to the sexual liaisons of an unmarried young male, possibly resulting in children born out of wedlock.

Footnotes

References

• (1999): World Wide Words: Sow one's wild oats Web posted 1999-NOV-27. Retrieved 2007-OCT-17.
• (2000): Domestication of plants in the Old World (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.