Farmer’s Life: Successfully Growing oats and making Hay, Straw and Oat Grains

Growing oats in this game seem to be trickier than the other crops by far, I have spent hours of experimenting strictly with oats trying to figure out how they grow and what season and conditions they actually trigger in, as a lot of times when you take the oat grain bags and click on land you have sowed that about 95% of the time, the game will not tell you that it has been successfully planted so if it does not tell you then you will have to wait a few in game days. Otherwise it will display the plot as “Oat: 72 hours” (3 in game days).

You first come across this for a quest that says you can either use a hoe to manually labor the land or buy a horse (for $5,000) and a plow (plow is either $250 or $800) and you will receive eight quantities of oat grains (Which is not enough as you need enough to make sixty units).

I have experimented with both ways of using a hoe and using a plow with horse and it seems the environment has more affect than anything. I tried planting on the first day of Spring and summer and even on the second and seemed to wasted oats. The fall season seems to be the ultimate time to grow oats but you have to get them planted on the first day of fall and harvest them as soon as thy are ready or winter will destroy them unmercifully. It does not matter if you use plow or hoe becuase I have managed to plant oats in both crop types.

First day of fall, AND IT HAS TO BE THE FIRST DAY OF FALL FROM WHAT I HAVE EXPERIMENTED WITH, make sure your plowed or sowed land is 100% fertile, that is a must. Then grab how ever many units of “Oat grains” you are wanting to plant and equip them. Once you get to where you want to plant, click the left button to drop the grains and wait until the dust settles before moving on. You can drop more than one dusting if you wish and still don’t see the crops has been planted. If this is successful, then each plot should show the words “Oat: ready in 72 Hours”. You will not see budding seeds until the next day and they will look like weeds. When the crop is golden brown, it is ready to simply cut with a scythe. If your not sure then simply walk to the crop and see if it says “Oat: Ready to Harvest”.

UPDATE 11/04/2021 9:09 P.M. EST

I was told in a thread you have to look into the horizon when you throw the seeds and don’t move until they hit the ground. The dust will cover many plots around you. They will plant in any season except winter. So do not look at the ground when you plant them, look straight ahead and click and make sure your standing land you want to seed. This should have a 100% success rate.

The quest that is given to you will require you to buy a scythe and a flail. You wont use the flail to harvest the oats but it will still be needed. If you have bought a scythe prior to this, simply sell your old scythe or buy one and turn around and return it. After you have successfully grown and harvested oats (It took me seven in game years to finally be able to figure it out as there were no other guides at this guides time to tell me how oats work) , drag the pile of “Cut Oat” outside of the inventory to place it on the ground in a pile. I advise picking a area where your animals can not get in contact distance of the flail and pay attention to surroundings when harvesting (I accidentally killed Fluffy with the flail while trying to get oat grains).

After you make the pile in a open and clear area, equip the flail and swing away at all sides of the pile of “Cut Oat” and you will automatically get several units of “Oat Grains” depending on the size of the pile. After you have thoroughly beaten the pile with the flail and cannot get anymore grains then you can pick up the pile and should get both straw and hay from.