pine cob?

I've just recently become interested in building with cob. The more I see the more I want to build with it. Where I live in South Georgia there are more tree farmers than there are wheat farmers so I want to know, can you use pine straw to make cob. Has anybody tried that. Looking forward to it hearing some interesting responses.

I was at a cob workshop in South Carolina where we used pine straw, nothing special either just right off the forest floor. We also used horse manure which when you look at it really close there's a lot a fibres da.

Thanks Steven. I've been reading several discussions about building with cob and haven't found any references to the type of straw used. I can just imagine my wife's response when I tell her we will be using horse manure to build our house and we'll be mixing it up with our bare feet. hahaha! We may leave that ingredient out if at all possible. I can't wait to start experimenting with some bricks and maybe a big planter pot.

This book talks about different types of straw.
Hand Sculpted House

Although I have no practical experience, the best thing to do would be to make some test bricks and see if it works well. I'm sure it would, and its local, and best of all free!

We built a hybrid cob-adobe cottage last year, and rather than pay for straw, I harvested quite a lot of the fallen pine needles from the surrounding pine groves to use as the binding fiber. It was easy to work with, as long as you remove whatever sticks and twigs you happen to rake up with the needles, and just be sure not to throw too big a bundle of needles into the cob mix at a time (will get too clumpy). We were using a mortar mixer and used 5 shovels of clay with 1 shovel of sand and 1 double-handful of pine needles as our general mix ratio. It built up nicely, and has been holding up well. Seems like a good idea (so far) with the pine needles instead of the straw.

Daniel, I'd love to see some pics of your cottage. Would you happen to be in Georgia?

Originally from the US, I now live in central Chile, where cob and adobe are traditional building materials. I will try to post some pics. The "cobbage" is 6 meters x 8 meters, with an attached bathroom. The foundation is packed earth. This was intended to be temporary / short-term housing until we build our final / permanent house, but we may stay in it longer than originally anticipated, as we are finding it rather enjoyable for our family of 5 to live in less than 600 sq. ft.

more power to you. I don't think my family of seven could survive such close quarters after having the kind of "moving around" space we now have.