Danger of strawbale gardening/mulch

The Grow Network has a good article about why NOT to use straw as mulch. http://ift.tt/2hmbgIF

I read the article and initially thought that this was a bit alarmist.

Then I reviewed the success (or lack thereof) of the areas where I'd used straw in the past two years.

I ordered a bunch of bales this fall, in my barn now, just for the purpose of mulching.

Long story short, I decided to test bean germination. One plate of beans with water, one plate with straw tea (straw soaked in water for a few days)

Here are the enlightening results:

the plain water beans - 28 germinated out of 39 beans
the wheat tea beans germinated 4 out of 34

The 4 wheat tea bean sprouts are very small and stunted one of them 1/2 cm, the others less than 1/4 cm, the plain water ones look normal, most about 1/4 cm to a cm

I am going to recommend others do the same if they plan to use straw as mulch. This also means that the straw from my chicken coop and rabbit pen can't be used as I had initially planned.

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Danger of strawbale gardening/mulch