I can't find the records from when I began this project, but it was around 1998, I think. I wanted to try to get a winter hardy naked seeded oat. I requested an assortment of winter common oats and spring naked seeded oats from GRIN, and from seed companies. I made crosses between the winter and spring varieties. I do remember that two lines of winter oat from Pennsylvania, PI 555726 and PI 555733, were far and away the most winter hardy, so I focused on them in the crosses. The F-1 seed, since I didn't know how hardy it would be, I started inside in the spring, or spring planted outside, to insure I got a lot of F2 seed. Then it was a matter of fall planting, harvesting the winter survivors, and among them keeping the ones that showed some sign of naked seeded-ness. Over the years the population has improved to where about 80% of the plants are as hardy as the original winter oats from Pennsylvania, and they are all naked seeded, with variation in how easy they thresh. The unique characteristic they share with the Pennslyvania winter oat lines, is that they have an extremely prostrate winter habit, and that in the spring they stay in the prostrate overwinter state for a long time, and don't start stem elongation until well after my wheat and rye.
I find oats more difficult to cross than wheat or barley. I haven't made any more crosses with the oats until this summer. I tried crossing some of the different easiest threshing plants. Out of about 10 attempted crosses, I got about 10 F-1 seeds, with 4 of those tiny seeds that didn't germinate. In comparison, out of 10 crosses in wheat I would expect to get about 10-15 seeds per cross, over 100 F-1 seeds in all. I have planted out those 6 F-1 oat seeds and hope to start a new round of selection from them.
The plants tend to not lodge very much, are vigorous and a good weed competitor once they start growing in spring, and birds love the seeds! Maybe less of a problem if you grow a large enough patch, which I haven't done yet. I haven't measured, but it seems like the naked seeded yields less than the common oats, maybe mainly because the seeds are smaller, and slightly less seed set. Since it matures during an earlier cooler time of year, maybe that is an advantage in this climate over spring planted naked seeded oats. I would like to get the threshing easier too. I should grow one of the spring naked seeded oats again to compare ease of threshing.
The first photo shows my winter hulless oats in the foreground, my tetraploid rye in the background. The seed photo shows one of the original Pennslyvania common winter oats on the left, my hulless winter oats on the right.
do they yeild more than spring planted hulless oats?
I don't know, as I haven't grown spring hulless oats for a long time. I think they would be comparable. My memory is that the spring hulless oats were taller growing, and for me more prone to lodging. In my climate, spring planted oats have to go through more hot and potentially dry summer weather. The winter oats make more of their growth during the cooler and moister time of year.
I never heard of winter oats before, but I like this idea.
I've only grown two hulless oats - Terra and Baton. Terra was really a majestic plant with heavy yield and lodge resistant by comparison other grains. Sadly it wasn't easy to remove hulls.
I harvested my winter naked (hulless) oats today. They did well, no lodging even with gusty thunderstorm in May, and survived -6F with snow cover this winter. Just a small patch. They were planted in early October 2025. I had 6 F-1 plants as well, I hope to select for better threshing. It's a yellow yardstick in the picture, 36".
I love that you're diversifying the crops that can be sown to hold the earth over winter instead of going fallow. Oats are a crop I want to grow whether I thresh and eat them or not. Even as a cover crop alone they are worth growing.
There's always the question of a thresher/dehuller tech as well. Not the end of the world for sure, to have a few hulls to remove.