Oats · Mytishchi, Moscow Oblast, Russia
When to plant oats in Mytishchi
Main outdoor window
11 Apr - 2 May
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
2 May
In Mytishchi, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
20 Jul - 19 Aug
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Mytishchi
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Sow direct
11 Apr - 2 May
Held back until the soil is warm enough for this crop. The frost date on its own would say 4 Apr, which is too cold for it to start.
Harvest
20 Jul - 19 Aug
Oats through the year
Against the frost risk in Mytishchi
Why these dates
Sow very early in spring for grain. Sown in late summer instead, oats make excellent ground cover that winter-kills cleanly and leaves an easy seedbed in spring.
Seedlings take -7C. Oats sown as a cover crop are deliberately killed by frost around -8C, which is the point - the residue mulches the bed without needing removal.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Oats are timed for direct sowing 4 weeks before it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Mytishchi.
With one correction, which is the note at the top of the page: the offset alone would put this crop in soil that is still too cold for it. Where the frost date and the soil temperature disagree, the dates here follow the soil, because a seed in cold ground either rots or waits, and a sowing made a fortnight later usually overtakes it.
The median frost-free season here is 158 days, against 100 to 130 days to maturity for this crop counted from sowing. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Mytishchi
Other grains to time
Growing oats in Mytishchi
When should I plant oats in Mytishchi?
Aim for 11 Apr - 2 May in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 20 Apr - 11 May - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
Can I plant oats earlier in Mytishchi?
Frost is finished by about 4 Apr, but the soil is still too cold. Oats will not start until it reaches 4°C (39.2°F), and here that is around 11 Apr. Going in earlier usually means seed that rots or transplants that sit and sulk, and a later sowing catches them up.
When will oats be ready to harvest in Mytishchi?
Expect to start picking around 20 Jul - 19 Aug, based on 100 to 130 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will oats tolerate?
Seedlings take -7C. Oats sown as a cover crop are deliberately killed by frost around -8C, which is the point - the residue mulches the bed without needing removal.