I can’t say anything directly to your purpose about strawboard. I will say that some European farms went overboard with their modernizing. I first ran into liquid cow manure being spread on the fields in Germany, and it was decades later before it arrived around here in New England. It is loaded into big tanker trucks and sprayed on the fields. It is generally agreed by purists that it is NOT the best way to fertilize fields, that a lot of the nutrients are lost, and that chemicals are sometimes added.
It is mostly the result of large-scale factory farming, with the manure drained off into lagoons to get it off the concrete barn floors more automatically. The older alternative was to use straw as “bedding” in the stalls or milking parlors. The manure and urine (also a valuable fertilizer) went into the bedding, where the nutrients were far better preserved. Then when the bedding was properly aged, it was forked up and spread back on the fields, which prevented the gradual loss of nutrients over the years.
Straw bedding might be six inches or a foot deep. That retained the value of the fertilizer much better, and also was comfortable for the cows, horses, sheep, etc., to stand or lie on. And the straw itself provided value when it went back into the topsoil.
In other words, I doubt whether converting straw to building materials is the best way to preserve the fertility of pastures.
This use of straw bedding applies mostly to family farms, with fewer than a hundred cows or so. But returning from factory farms to family farms would benefit our country and our land, and perhaps eventually undo the agricultural subsidies, ethanol subsidies, and all the rest of the big government interference and waste that reward big political donors and undermines family farming.
When I was young, straw was used almost exclusively for livestock bedding and fertilizer after it had served its use as bedding.
Balance was quite important-- too much straw on the fields yielded too much carbon and was not good for the crops. Too little defeated the purpose of using it as a fertilizer.
There was occassional trading between farmers who had too many animals and those who had too few to achieve the right mix. But far more common was to stack and burn the excess used straw in the fall. The ash reduced the carbon, converted it potash and had just the right amount of nitrogen for spreading on the fields.
It was a good combination used for generations, but I found that it applied mostly to large livestock (sheep/pig size and above).
I once did it with chicken straw. Poultry manure is so high in nitrogen, that the straw pile burned for three days. It also had to be spread a lot thinner on the crops to avoid nitrogen burning. Needless to say, burning doesn't release a pleasant odor and it is best done when the prevailing winds are blowing away from your neighbors.
Thanks for posting that. I was trying to fit a similar thought into one paragraph.