''Avena byzantina'', red oats, is a species of cultivated

oat The oat (''Avena sativa''), sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural). Oats appear to have been domesticated as a secondary crop, as their seeds ...

in the family ''

Poaceae Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivate ...

''. It is native to Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, the Transcaucasus, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Cultivated for thousands of years, it is better suited to warmer conditions than white or common oats ('' Avena sativa''), but is often sown as a notill winter crop. There are 564 landraces and 203 cultivars of red oats listed in the European Plant Genetic Resources Search Catalogue (EURISCO). Approximately 10% of the millions of hectares worldwide under oats are devoted to red oats, principally for fodder.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15507675 Oats Cereals Fodder byzantina Plants described in 1848 Taxa named by Karl Koch