Mulch layer on Seeds

I am an avid user of mulches and their benefits are real, but I would wait until the plants have emerged and are growing strongly before adding any mulch - waiting 2-3 days after they emerge before adding a thin layer of your rice hulls. Make sure to keep any (type of) mulch away from the stems, it can lead to mould rotting the stems, especially with young seedlings. Lucerne/alfalfa meal is probably the best mulch to use, it has a fantastic carbon/nitrogen ratio that will not rob your soil of any goodness as it breaks down. Other materials like hay or straw can cause a nitrogen "draw down", whereby the microbes that break the mulch down will require more goodness than what goodness than the mulch can provide. This can be mitigated by adding a thin layer of aged animal manure on top of the soil before placing the mulch down. With lucerne/alfalfa the addition of manure is not necessary as it provides more nitrogen than what is required by the microbes to break the mulch down. Adding various amendments to the rice hulls/lucerne/alfalfa etc is a good way of providing your plants with slow release nutrients. Things like volcanic rock dust, blood/bone meal, kelp meal, oyster shell flour, fish meal, crushed egg shells, pelletised chicken manure etc etc, but wait until the plants are well established before adding anything too rich, and go easy on baby seedlings. Hope this helps, Organoman.