Oat as Green Fodder and Its Intercropping Benefits: A Review

Abstract

Oat (Avena sativa L.) has been grown in the past hundred years, though its production potential is yet to be explored to combat the winter forage scarcity. The oats can be grown in combination with other fodder legumes such as berseem, lucerne, pea and vetch. In order to increase productivity per unit area, there is a need to test the promising forage species having high forage yield potential and quality as well the compatibility for mix cropping. The present review explores the productive potential of oat combined with promising legumes in terms of dry matter and chemical composition. The present review summarizes the benefits of oat-legume intercropping on forage yield and quality. Further, it discusses that oats in combination with pea and or vetch could be a potential model of intercropping to attain an increased forage dry matter yield that could address the situation of mitigating DM shortage, especially during winter season.