Killer Seed - Progress Report

Well, the “Killer Seed” test is about a month old so it is time for a progress report. The plants in the potting soil are looking quite good. They are healthy and growing.  The plants in the 50% sunflower shell mix should be dead by now if the sunflower shells are as toxic as some people claim.  As you can see in the picture, all the plants are quite alive. Admittedly, the plants in the shell mix are not doing as well as the ones in the good soil, but they only have ½ the soil to work with.

 
At this time I will say that the heavy dose of sunflower shells in the soil does not appear to be very toxic to the plants. Of course this result raises the question - if the sunflower shells are not killing the plants and grass under feeders, what is? The answer is traffic. Traffic in the form of constant scratching and pecking by the birds. Of course the squirrels, raccoons and opossums add to this. The under layers of the soil are being compacted and the top layer is constantly disturbed. These are not good growing conditions.

Now that I have subjected the poor plants to an overdose of sunflower shells mixed into the soil, I think I will re-stage the experiment with good soil and heavy mulch. I will use sunflower shells as mulch on the test plants, which more closely simulates actual feeder conditions, and a commercial mulch on the control plants.

Stay tuned...