[3] Avena sterilis is a stout, broad-leaved grass that grows up to 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) tall.

[2] A study of 139 populations of A. sterilis L. in Spain revealed 6 varieties based on morphological classifications, though no new subspecies were formally described.

[4][2] A. sterilis is native to the Mediterranean Basin and West, Central and South Asia, but is widely naturalized elsewhere.

[4] In North America, it grows as an introduced species in the U.S. states of California, Oregon,[8] New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania,[4] and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.

[10] It is also a wild host to Petrobia latens, commonly known as the brown wheat mite.

[3] Genetic analysis has shown that A. sterilis grass indigenous to Southwest Asia, and modern Iran, Iraq, and Turkey is the progenitor of domesticated oat crops such as A. sativa and A.

[12][13][14] Castillejo-González et al., 2014 locate A. sterilis infested fields with almost perfect accuracy using QuickBird (satellite imagery) and various image classifiers.

ludoviciana with multiple herbicide resistance - at 2 sites of action (SOAs) - was first observed in Kermanshah, Khuzestan, Iran, in winter wheat cultivation in 2010.

[17] A. sterilis populations in Greece are almost all resistant to diclofop but susceptible to most other herbicides, including others of the same MOA (i.e., AACase inhibitors).