Sandra Bodycoat wrote:
Hi

I have seen bales of straw advertised and I was wondering if this
would be fine to use as a mulch, as it is cheaper than lucerne mulch?
Thanks
Sandra

Straw is generally excellent mulch. As with anything you put into your soil
it is a good idea to understand the provenance of what you are buying..
Usually (but not always) straw is just the stalks and refuse from a cereal
crop and contains little in the way of nasty chemicals or living things. It
is possible however for weed seeds (including the cereal crop it came from)
or other undesirable things to be included.

Cut and dried lucerne and lupin would more properly be called hay. Hay is a
mix of whatever plants were in the pasture at the time of cutting including
all parts of the plant above the cutting level. Thus depending on when it
was cut you can get high levels of viable seeds. The nature of those seeds
depends on the grasses and weeds present. In such cases composting may kill
the seeds but then you have compost not mulch.

You can often buy cheap bales that are too old to use a stock feed (hay) or
stock bedding (straw) and they may be partly composted already from just
lying around or getting wet. Such may be quite good and fairly harmless.
They can also come complete with snakes and other vermin depending on where
it has been lying about and how long.

David