Lucerne hay belongs to the pea straw family, popularly grown as livestock feed across the world.
Lucerne mulch is basically lucerne hay used as mulch instead of livestock fodder. Lucerne hay is also known as Medicago sativa. In North America, they call it alfalfa. Lucerne hay is rich in high levels of essential nutrients that are beneficial to plants - for that reason lucerne makes a perfect mulch. Lucerne mulch offers your garden a lot of benefits. For instance, the mulch breaks down nitrogen and potassium levels which ensures your plants thrive. It also increases output and improves your garden by suppressing weeds and keeping valuable moisture. Below are some added benefits of using lucerne mulch in your garden.
Increases nitrogen and potassium levels in your soil.
Improves moisture conservation and suppresses weeds.
It contains hormones that protect your plants from root diseases.
Reduces fertilising expenses.
Stimulates growth.
Promotes worm activity keeping your soil healthy.
Keeps your soil warm in winter and cooler in summer.
Lucerne is a fantastic mulch but more expensive than most mulches. Also, when using it on edible plants, buy organically grown straw hay due to lack of pesticides.
This mulch is also called alfalfa. It's mostly used in gardening systems that are organic and require no digging. Apart from having high levels of essential nutrients like nitrogen and potassium, it decomposes fast. This combination makes lucerne a better general-purpose mulch suited for both sand and clay soil. Plus, lucerne works well with veggies, roses, fruit trees and many more flowering plants.
This mulch comes from sugarcane leaves and tops. It's a seed-free mulch, which helps prevent weed growth. Like lucerne, it encourages earthworm activities and is also a wonderful choice for non-dig-up gardens. However, the mulch takes a longer time to decompose.
Apart from being expensive, lucerne has enormous benefits. First of all, the mulch suppresses weeds and enriches the soil with much-needed nutrients like calcium, potassium, folic acid, nitrogen, among others. Besides that, lucerne decomposes quickly, which benefits your garden soil with additional organic matter. Sugar cane mulch decomposes slowly, which leaves your soil looking crumby and depleted.
On the flip side, sugar cane mulch has some advantages over lucerne. It stays for longer before breaking down completely, meaning you don't have to replenish often. It's cheap and carries no weed seeds. However, those advantages have no gainful benefit to the soil and plants you grow. Lucerne still makes up for this drawback by offering more nutrients that boost your plant's growth. This straw hay also enhances how your garden looks by improving moisture conservation.