Straw? growing on my hugelkultur

I fenced my hugelkultur and finally managed to keep my chickens from removing the soil.  I bought straw and put it on top of the soil to help with weeds and water retention (it is only about 8 months old and those have been a very dry 8 months, not to  mention the chickens constant effort to remove the soil down to the top wood level)  I must have gotten the wrong straw because it is growing.  At first I thought it was Johnson grass, but when I pulled it out it had and seed at the bottom, and I realized it was something I haven't seen before, and must be the straw.  I have just started planting my hugel, so at this point there isn't much on it.  My question is do I pull the ?Straw out, or leave it and chop and drop as things start to grow.  I was going to chop and drop but was reading in another unrelated post that certain cereal grains have long roots and are hard to get rid of. I have no idea what kind of straw I have, so now I wonder if I should go pull it all out before it can establish itself.  I know it's vague  information, but I would love to hear your thoughts.  Thank you.

There a thing I do. I call it Pull a Weed, Plant a seed. Catchy huh? You didn’t buy the wrong thing. When buying from a box store you can’t get real straw anymore. I don’t mind that for my uses and you can probably use it to your advantage too. Cut the “straw” short then put your seeds in. Right before the seeds germinate cut it close again. That should give your plant time to get a head start. I would only cut it again if it’s outgrown your desired plants. See how it works. If unhappy get rid of it, if not let it go for another round of chop n drop.

Hey Jen, you most likely got rice straw (that seems to be the vast majority of the straw we have around here) and in my experience there are always a few seeds in the rice straw. I've never really had a problem with it. How thick is it growing in? I'd definitely still use the straw and just cut down or pluck out the unwanted plants same as you would for any other weed

That’s pretty interesting. Here in NC there’s just hay, no straw. I’m betting rice straw is much better.

Scott Stiller wrote:That’s pretty interesting. Here in NC there’s just hay, no straw. I’m betting rice straw is much better.

Ya straw requires industrial grain crops. Here in nor. Cal that is the massive rice fields of the Sacramento valley. Its a nice product and a great mulch, and if you've got a good local garden store you can even sometimes get organic rice straw. We also can get rice hulls at decent prices

I bought the straw at my local feed store.  The one I bought last year didn't sprout anything. It doesn't sound like it will be much of an issue, thank goodness.

I thought about using rice hulls for mulch, in my veggie garden last year. I can get a huge container of it for 10.00, but I was afraid it would just blow away.

Thank you everyone for your helpful info.

Ya rice hulls are a terrible mulch for the reason you noted. They are nice for lightening up soil to make a potting mix, basically replacing perlite.  They are also good cover for composting toilets

No matter how efficient a combine might be, there is always a bit of grain that makes it through the thrashing process.  I'd be curious to see what grew from that straw -- rice?  Wheat?  Barley?  Hey -- you could make your own beer.