Oats For Cover Crop, Green Feed or Harvest?

 This year on the farm we completed a major task, that of clearing more land around the first acre we ever opened up.  Two sides just needed a bit of tidying up, the other 2 sides required heavy mechanical assistance.  We ended up with about 2.25 acres of tillable, plantable land.  One section of the recent clearing is about 200 feet by 120 feet, just over half an acre.  It was the most vulnerable looking area, so we planted it with Oats.  Within five days and with alot of irrigation (mid-July), we had 0.6 acres of Oats emerge!  

Our intention was to till the plants in once they started to thicken up and tiller growth was underway, thus giving a green manure to the soil.  What we started to see was the very vigorous growth of the Oats so we have left them standing with an intention to harvest whatever survived the cold of October, bale the straw and plow the stubble in to give something back to the soil.

So as the last photo shows, the Oats are losing their color, succumbing to the snow and cold.  According to the forecast, next week will have a 2 to 3 day window to harvest whatever Oats have matured and to bale the remaining straw.

We will post as soon as we are done the harvest!