[Cob] straw/hay

[Shannon Dealy]

On Mon, 16 Jul 2007, Ocean Liff-Anderson wrote:

[snip]
> BTW - its OK to used hay or straw with seeds - the wall sprouts the
> first season while its wet, looks like a chia pet, but then once dry
> no more growth.
[snip]

NOTE: The primary arguments I am aware of against hay are:

  - It is not a "waste" product like straw is, since it has nutritional
    value and can be fed to animals

  - Hay is normally much more expensive than straw (because it isn't a
    waste product)

  - It will rot/break down more in your wall while it is drying (the food
    part of it rots more easily).

None of these make it unsuitable for cob, simply not the preferred choice.

NOTE:  I have one building that was done by simply (okay it wasn't that 
simple :-) hand harvesting the grasses and other fibrous plants that grow 
naturally around the building site.  You will probably want to test how 
they hold up before doing this since different plants behave in different 
ways, however, in this case the result is stronger than what I get from 
baled straw in this area.

FWIW.

Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
dealy at deatech.com     |          - Custom Software Development -
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Phone: (800) 467-5820 | Networking, Scientific & Engineering Applications
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