Avena
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 Avena fatua (Common Wild Oat)
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Avena abyssinica |
Avena is a genus of 10-15 species of grasses, native to Europe, Asia and northwest Africa.
One species, the Oat (A. sativa) is of major commercial importance as a cereal grain. Two other species are of minor commercial importance:
- A. strigosa, which is grown for fodder in parts of Western Europe; and
- A. abyssinica, which Zohary and Hopf describe as "a half-weed, half-crop confined to the highlands of Ethiopia."[1]
Other species are nuisance weeds in cereal crops, as, being grasses like the crop, they cannot be chemically removed; any herbicide that would kill them would also damage the crop.
Avena species, including cultivated oats, are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Rustic Shoulder-knot and Setaceous Hebrew Character.
[edit] Diseases
[edit] Food
In Scotland a dish called Sowans was made by soaking the husks from oats for a week so that the fine, floury part of the meal remained as sediment to be strained off, boiled and eaten (Gauldie 1981).
[edit] References
- Gauldie, Enid (1981). The Scottish Miller 1700 - 1900. Pub. John Donald. ISBN 0-85976-067-7.
