As the July calendar points closer to August, here’s a question that’s asked commonly among food-plotters:

Can I plant oats and cereal rye now (or a mixture of the two), or should I wait until the end of August?

We turned to two resident experts for answers:

“You can certainly wait, but no issues at all — assuming rain or good subsoil moisture — to wait. The cell walls will be a smidge thicker and tougher come Oct. 1, but not enough to honestly matter at all in 99% of the cases in the Midwest and points North. If anything, most folks in MN, WI and MI plant late and cheat themselves out of a bunch of growth. The only reason you’d want to plant late would be because you are already offering a ton of food and are striving for a pure of a candy crop as you can achieve, but the difference in usage will typically be fairly small.”
Steve Bartylla, Deer & Deer Hunting

“You can plant oats now, but I wouldn’t plant until around Sept. 1. There are problems with rust disease with rye, especially when it’s planted in August. Oats germinate so quickly that it’s got plenty of time to grow if you wait. You can just broadcast the rye on top of the oats and it will germinate with one rain. Another good option is 60% forage peas and 40% forage oats.”
Andy Schoofs, Schoofs Greenworks