Oats · Fes, Fes-Meknes, Morocco
When to plant oats in Fes
Main outdoor window
6-27 Jan
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
3 February
In Fes, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
16 Apr - 16 May
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 Fes
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 for autumn
5-26 Jul
Counting back 144 days from your first frost so the crop matures in time.
Sow direct
6-27 Jan
Four weeks before your last frost.
Harvest
16 Apr - 16 May
Oats through the year
Against the frost risk in Fes
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 Fes.
The median frost-free season here is 317 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 Fes
Other grains to time
Growing oats in Fes
When should I plant oats in Fes?
Aim for 6-27 Jan in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 24 Jan - 14 Feb - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will oats be ready to harvest in Fes?
Expect to start picking around 16 Apr - 16 May, 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.