Sunflower seeds are good for feeding birds. They are relatively cheap, easy to handle, and birds love them. There is only one problem – the hulls. By spring the ground under bird feeders is covered with sunflower seed hulls.
Very little seems to grow under a feeder and many have heard that the sunflower hulls are allelopathic and that the allelochemicals prevent other plants from growing. There are even lists of plants on the internet that are affected by these chemicals.
There is also a concern about disposing sunflower seed hulls. Is it safe to compost them? Should they be put into the garbage? Can they be used as mulch? In this post, I’ll answer these questions by looking at the science.
