Using chaff as a mulch

Flatland

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I discovered to my great dismay that the bag of oaten chaff I had stored had become wet and has gone very mouldy. I can't possibly feed it to my horse so I was planning on using it as mulch for fruit trees and veggies. Wondering if anyone can see any problems with using it. I realize I might get a few oat plants coming up but that shouldn't be a problem. Oat plants are pretty easy to put up
 

ClissAT

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Flatland, what a disappointment to find your valuable oaten chaff mouldy!

I have used both white & green chaff to mulch around plants & between tiny seedlings.
The only thing I had to be careful about was that some of the chaff wanted to stick together forming a bit of a mat.
But you wont know until you give it a try.
The alternative is to put it in the compost as the brown component.
It will break down & hold more moisture & be more beneficial to the soil if it is kept wet itself but that often doesn't happen when used as the top layer of mulch. In the compost that does happen.

As for those yummy oat plants. Feed them to the horses or wait until the grain is full & let the chooks have a plant each day.
 
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