Cover crop
Black oat is a valuable winter cover crop in places where frost does not occur. It tillers readily, providing good soil coverage. Black oat produces more mineral N than other cover crops such as rye (Schomberg et al., 2005). Black oat has a good C:N ratio that is favourable for soil N management (Dial, 2014). Black oat is efficient at translocating soil phosphorus in oxisol soils (Antony, 2007). In the northern part of Parana (Brazil), planting black oat as a winter cover crop resulted in increased soybean yield (+ 38%) and increased bean yield (+ 68%) (Derpsch et al., 1985 cited by Machado, 2000).
Weed control
Black oat prevents the development of broadleaf weeds. In the USA, it controlled 34% of weeds while other cover crops, such as rye, only controlled 26%, and wheat 19% in cotton grown under conservation tillage (USDA, 2005). Though it has been reported as having some allelopathic effects on cottonseed, the use of black oat as a cover crop had a better residual effect than rye on a following cottonseed crop (Bauer et al., 1999).
Nematode control
Black oat is reported to have nematicidal effect. As a cover crop, black oat was shown to be resistant to or inhibit root-knot nematodes (Lima et al., 2009). The use of black oat as a fallow crop before strawberry cultivation reduced nematode lesions more efficiently than sorghum (Sudan grass) or common oats (Dial, 2014). Some breeding programmes aim at selecting nematode suppressing black oats (Diederichsen, 2014a).
Phytoremediation
In Japan, black oat was reported to have good potential for cadmium extraction from agricultural soils (Uraguchi et al., 2006).