Ksk
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Sunflower hulls in compost.

I am an avid birder, gardener, and composters and have many sunflower seed hulls that I rake up under the bird feeders year round. Will sunflower hulls stunt plants if used in compost? I notice that plants under feeders seem to struggle. I have concluded this may result from the hulls changing the soil but that is based on my observation. I am looking for any facts to prove or disprove my theory. All opinions and theories welcome! I live in a high desert (NM) at 6500 ft above sea level.

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pinksand
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I'm really curious about this as well.

I honestly don't even rake the hulls up, just let them accumulate as a sort of mulch. Since my dog tends to chase squirrels and chipmunks from my feeders, I try to place them in hardy areas with mostly shrubs. Surrounding the feeders I have yews, and camellias that have seemed unaffected by the hulls. My camellias seem to grow well and bloom nicely.

imafan26
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Sunflowers are alleopathic to some plants. I have used this to my advantage since sunflowers don't like plants growing around their roots for weed control. I pull out the roots when they are done and I don't compost the fibrous stalks, so I don't have problems with them after they are gone. I do plant them around the corn when there is room and the corn does not seem to mind them. I did find this article about alleopathy of sunflower residues and it seems your observation may indicate that the sunflower hulls in the soil may be keeping other things from growing there. That being said, when I had a bird feeder, I did have bird seed sprouting under the feeder but a bare spot in the grass as well under the feeder because the larger birds were always scratching the soil there looking for the seeds the smaller birds dropped. BTW, I changed to a wild bird seed without sunflower seeds. Before the feeder with cardinal mix, the birds generally left my sunflowers alone. Now, the birds will eat most of the seeds if the sunflower heads are not covered. I was also told to limit sunflower seeds because it makes birds more aggressive.

https://www.bioline.org.br/pdf?cj12051

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pinksand
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How interesting about them being alleopathic! I'll have to keep an eye on my plants... I wouldn't mind if they just kept the weeds from growing while the bushes do well ;)

As far as feeding the birds go, I have honestly done the opposite... I no longer buy mixed seeds because I hated the weedy look of everything sprouting below the feeder in my garden. I have 4 purely black oil sunflower seed feeders and there is zero waste! What doesn't get eaten by the birds gets eaten from the ground by critters. Only the hulls are left behind. I don't tend to see much aggression at my feeders and have them fairly spread out with lots of places for birds to wait their turn. My other feeders are peanut, suet, and nyjer thistle so I do have some variety. I think my thistle feeder gets the most aggression from seemingly ravenous finches who think they need the whole feeder to themselves and constantly chase each other away.

imafan26
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You have a different population of critters than I do. Most of the birds here are aliens that were released pets. Most of the native honey creepers have evolved to be specialists that only feed on specific plants so they are rarely found in urban areas. I have no squirrels and while I have seen mongoose a couple of miles away in the gully, none of them are at my house.
What I have are mostly society finches, Java rice birds, mejiro (white eye- a small but very aggressive bird), bulbuls ( an alien from Fiji that is a major pest), spotted neck doves, mourning doves, pigeons, northern cardinal, red crested cardinal, and occasionally a cockatoo. The cattle egret also visits but primarily looks for insects, lizards, and mice. Mynah birds are more fruit and insect birds and since I usually don't have army worms in my lawn, they hang around the neighbors bermuda.

Most of the birds in my yard like fruit and will eat papaya, lychee, mango, pears, strawberries, and tomatoes. I have to grow tomatoes under nets. The doves and cardinals will eat the seeds out of the pots so I have to cover the seed trays until they sprout. The mejiro and rice birds are the reason why we don't grow rice locally anymore. The birds also like to break through my soffit vents and nest in my walls.

The social birds like the finches will actually keep the bulbuls away. The cardinals are very territorial they only allow family members of their own kind and they will forage with very few other birds around. The mejiro will attack cats. The doves cannot get on the feeder so they wait on the roof and when they see me coming out to fill the feeder, they call the smaller birds. The small birds will drop seeds in their feeding frenzy and the doves pick up the fallen seeds under the feeder.

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pinksand
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Very true imafan26! Our garden visitors are regionally quite different. When I visited Hawaii a couple years ago I remember watching a battle between a red crested brazillian cardinal and another bird over some fallen fruit. They seemed so much more aggressive than the cardinals we have here. I had to look up the mejiro since I wasn't familiar with them... omg they are so cute! Hard to believe those little fluff balls can be so nasty ;)

Ksk
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Thanks for the information. My grapes died a year or so after I put the bird feeder near them. It could have been a coincidence but I always wondered if the hulls were causal in the grapes dying.

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applestar
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I remember just leaving the hulls under the feeder -- but now that I don't put out birdseed anymore, the base of the feeder hook is always overgrown. (any connection?) I finally got around to thinking about whacking the weeds and grass and started hand-pulling in preparation to sickle-cutting...and it turned out there was a rabbit nest in there -- a tiny baby bunny streaked out. :shock: ...that was a week ago... I'm starting to see baby bunny/bunnies in other areas so maybe I can go ahead and clean up the base of the feeder hook.

Maybe if you have a lot of them, the hulls would be better used raked and piled as mulch under shrubs that are not affected? If there are any edible portions left in the hulls, they may attract rodents.

imafan26
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A lot of the wild birds here did not really know what bird seed is. Many of the common house sparrows, mynahs, and some pigeons are used to being fed bread and rice and occasionally hot dogs and pizza that they just walk away from bird seed.

I used to have a bird feeder to entertain the cats, but there got to be so many of them and they started nesting in my walls, so I don't feed them anymore. Now, they come to raid the seeds out of my pots and eat the papayas. They can be very sneaky eating papaya. They eat the papaya from the side facing the tree and leave only the hollow skin. There are often loud skirmishes between the cardinals over food. Bulbuls like to eat orchid buds and petals and almost any large tomato. Smaller tomatoes they will only take as a last resort. They are especially fond of tabasco peppers. They usually eat every pepper and just leave the caps.

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applestar
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Maybe it would help if you grow a large bush of chili pequin away from the garden? Aren't they also known as "bird" peppers because birds eat them? Maybe they are taking the Tabasco because they are the closest to what they know.

Maybe you could trim them into topiaries in the front yard and tell "them" they are landscaping shrubbery. :wink:



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