History of Avena sativa

Oats are descended from A. Sterilis, a wild oat that spread as a weed of wheat and barley from the Fertile Crescent to Europe.

In the wetter, colder conditions of Europe, in which oats thrive, it was domesticated about 3000 years ago, and soon became an important cereal in its own right on the cooler fringes of Europe.

By the beginning of the seventh century oats were extensively established in Western Europe as a grain and forage crop and by 1024 oats had become an important crop in the British Isles.

Oats were brought to North America from two parts of Europe. They were introduced by the Spain into the southern part of North America, and into the northern part of the continent by the English and North European.

Oats were first planted in the United States on Cuttyhunk, an island of the Massachusetts coast, in 1602. 

Oats are chiefly a European and North American crop. These areas have the cool, moist climate to which oats are best adapted. Russia, Canada, the United States, Finland, and Poland are the leading oat producing countries.

In 1753 Carl Linnaeus described four oat species Avena sterilis, A. fatwa, A. sativa and A. nuda. He classified oats as wild or cultivated and among the cultivated oats he differentiated only the covered from the naked.

During the 1940s and 1950s, the five leading states in production usually were Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, and South Dakota. By the 1960's, the main oat producing area began moving somewhat north and westward.
History of Avena sativa