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Montoursville, PA

The USDA experiments have shown that in some areas earthworms convert 700 pound s of soil per acre, per day, into earthworm castings. These castings are generally mixed with the upper few inches of native soil causing a build-up of top soil.

Chemical analysis of parent soil without microorganisms and earthworms, and some of the exact same soil after itis worked by earthworms and microorganisms showed the following increases: Nitrate increase 500%, Available phosphorus 700%, Exchangeable potassium 1200%, Exchangeable calcium 150%, Organic carbon 200% and Available magnesiium 200%.

Microorganism activity in one acre of soil uses about the same amount of energy in soil preparation as 10,000 people wouold burn for the same work, for the same period of time.

Microorganisms must be protected, nourished and further stimulated when required.

This is the only reason some of us ask the ugly question. Will the addition of any specific product carry with it any chemical or mineral that will harm, sicken or kill the natural biological ballance in the soil.

In cases where the answer is "yes" we must individually determine the trade offs. Sometimes the soils are so bad immediate return to ballance might be impossible.
Rebuilding is a process which may include small reductions of certain elements while natural building begins an attempt to repair known damages.

Worm counts and improved worm populations is a fine way to determine your direction of building or result of wrong decisions which we all make from time to time.

5/27/2004 8:45:10 AM

Western Pa.

Doc,

Exactly how many worms does it take to convert 700 pounds of soil per day? We need facts!

5/27/2004 8:54:54 AM

Utah

It depends on the type of worm.
Red Wigglers can eat their own weight in 2 days. so one would need 1400 lbs of worms to eat 700 lbs of food per day. Red wigglers are composters. They eat organic matter (kitchen scraps, yard waste, manure, newspaper, etc... not 'soil'. But they need some soil for grit to help them digest. They can breed rapidly under ideal conditions. They are 1/2 inch to 3 1/2 inches long. There are approximately 1,000 worms per pound. so 1400 lbs would be 1,400,000 worms. but red wigglers don't do well on there own in the wild. Unless continually re-supplied with food they quickly eat all the availble food sources and die off.

Not as much is known about night crawlers but they are more solitary and found deeper in the soil. I would assume (guess) that they would eat there own weight in around 2-4 days. So to eat 700 lbs of soil you would need 2100 lbs of worms. They are longer and bigger than red wigglers normally 2 to 6 inches long. There are 200-300 worms per pound. So you would need 525,000 worms.
There are 43,560 sq. ft. in one acre, so there would need to be 12 worms per sq ft to accomplish the job. This would be a high concenration of worms if you ask me. Concenration varies greatly depending on soil type, but would say 1 worm per 2 sq ft would be a more reasonable estimate. Thus night crawler would convert 29 lbs of soil per day per acre.

5/27/2004 9:42:36 AM

Montoursville, PA

Gorsh matha and facts. Did'nt know us guys had any! For my rough calculations if you dig an area six inches to eight inches deep and find three garden worms or night crawlers in an area one foot by one foot you are half way to very good. Very good counts are six to seven in that amount of space. Excellent counts go as high as ten to twelve. These are levels that I have personally attained. Presently I am rebuilding following some bad advise I accepted last summer.
Maybe to be fair I should say following incorrect reports I read and then followed when I should have known better. I know I have a decent count that will now improve as this summer continues. I have used no synthetics in my soil this year.

If you have less than three or worse yet literally none you have been nuking to hard to long. Those are facts I can deal with without any math.

5/27/2004 11:16:42 AM

Utah

i think it really depends on your soil... as to how many worms you will have.
last year I was in a new patch. It had a fairly heavy clay under the sod that I removed... There were not many worms. so that is what i based my guess on... i'm sure there are lots of other soil types and conditions that can lead to different #'s, as you have stated.

5/27/2004 12:52:31 PM

Utah

I wasn't trying to shoot you down i was just trying to purt some gorsh matha and facts behind a number that you threw out. it turns out that yoru number or should i say the USDA's nubmer was perty gorsh dern good, in my opinion.

5/27/2004 12:55:52 PM

Utah

... the other fact that i forgot to mention is that if you give worms 700 lbs of food you won't get 700 lbs of castings. my best guess is that you'll get around 350 lbs of castings. some of it goes into energy to keep the worms alive and usually the food has some excess water in it.

5/27/2004 2:20:50 PM

wilmington,ma.

Doc I have a foot of compost that I'm growing in,this was put in last fall and this spring.I see vary few worms in it.
Does this mean it' no good to grow in??????

5/27/2004 6:39:07 PM

Montoursville, PA

Good grief! What kind of compost and was it fully finished compost? I could guess but it would be better if you led with some facts. I do believe that over the years I've more than likely been in every good and bad situation you could imagine. Give me a little help. I may be able to better understand and give some reasonable answer to your question.

5/27/2004 9:14:54 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

We raised Canadian Nightcrawlers here last summer for fishing. We kept them in Rubbermaid under-bed style storage tubs (not the really tall ones). I cut air holes in each large size tub. Then glued fiberglass screen over the holes to prevent escapes. Then we'd layer black & white newspaper with damped Peat Moss. Then toss 8 dozen large Canadian crawlers into each one.

Then we'd sprinkle a handful of corn meal into the tub every other day during spring & fall. Summer heat slows worms tremendously so we'd only feed twice weekly. More than that grew mold.

Thus for every 100 worms, we used around 1.5 lbs of cornmeal over a period of 4 months. In that time they would also consume all the newspaper (2-3 lbs dry?), & around 70% of the Peat Moss (4-5 lbs dry?) per each 100 count tub.

On those occasions my wife over-fed them cornmeal (she's very generous towards worms! LOL) all we did was grow mold & create nasty gasses. Once discovered, I had to srape all this crud out.

5/27/2004 9:15:47 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

What's all this mean in the patch? I haven't the slightest idea. Just after a rain, I can find about 2 or 3 very large crawlers of the same sort in each & every fork turn. This amount of soil is around .5 - .75 cubic feet depending on my back at the time.

During periods of heat or drought you're lucky to find any crawlers in the top foot since they go down very deep in search of comfort.

Night Crawler casting mounds in our patch now number about 3-5 per square foot. Right now the neighbors Maple Drupes are falling all over the patch when the wind blows our way. This will continue for the next couple weeks. Crawlers can't resisit Maple Drupes & spend all their time at night gethering the seeds to eat the "wings" off them. They never eat the seed itself, so I'll soon be weeding thousands of maple seedlings too. Larger casting piles may have 3 or 4 newly consumed drupes every morning. Boy the castings I saw this morning even after a soaking rain! Perhaps not 700 lbs per acre, but I'll take what the do give. Maybe that figure is per year?

5/27/2004 9:15:55 PM

Appalachian Mtns.

What bad advice was that Doc?

5/27/2004 10:02:58 PM

Indiana

I dont have worms...they dont like sandy areas

Tom

5/27/2004 11:06:39 PM

Canada

Since ive started my compost, and have since turned the pile over twice so it dont cook. everytime i turn it there are TONS of little red wigglers. the worms i find "staying" in my patch are the Larger 6" long earth worms. after every fishing trip the extra worms left over go into the patch.
after this last week of rain i was out 3 times to pick worms after dark and each night i pulled a good 100 worms
and dug a hole in several different places in the garden and put them in. they seem to be staying ( lots and lots of Coffe grounds and leaves) in the garden. every new mourning you can see new worm holes all over the patch from were they came out the night before!!

5/28/2004 8:33:44 PM

Montoursville, PA

Dave....them thar are good comments! Figure if you can see three or four mounds in a square foot your patch is indeed going the direction you would like it to go. For every mound you see there are a number more you have not seen. One reason is that little worms you can't see yet they do their thing day in and day out as they grow.

Your observation or red wigglers in the compost working and the gray and or night crawlers or night walkers in the garden is correct. We have found different classification of the common names...most likely due to regional habits yet there are two specific types who indeed do like the different environments. Within these two types there are a gazillion different worms.

5/28/2004 11:07:49 PM

Appalachian Mtns.

Hmmm, no comment?
Just curious....

5/28/2004 11:19:38 PM

Garden State Pumpkins

Ok ...from the lame personal observation....I brought in piles of leaves and sawdust....after watching the plants I realized that the sawdust needed about 20 times the nitrogen I had applied... I dosed this area with urea in huge amounts right now a year later I'm loaded with worms even more then the coffee ground area...While I don't think anyone should do what I did...when you have the time and will power to wait it out soil will work it's way through it. sawdust needs 20 times the nitrogen to break it down....leaves need more then manure...not like sawdust but more...more then likely green leaf material will give you enough nitrogen to do 20/1 carbon nitrogen ratios but when your dealing with 500/1 carbon nitrogen ratios you gotta bring in the big guns....all I'm saying is the worms come back as soon as the composting is done..

also my leaves today (this years batch) are still to hot for worms next year I expect them to be as full of worms as last years batch.

grow em big!

6/1/2004 8:47:05 PM

Montoursville, PA

I guess we are lucky to have a community supply of ground wood and tree materials with leaves and grass clippings all mixed in it as they grind up our yard and garden wastes. This then is piled wide and high. By observation we can wait until a pile is two or three years old and well along the way to being composted before we take it back home for mulch and soil amendments. This is anerobic composing but none the less the price is free. That is the best price always.

Along the edges the eagle eye composters watch for black gold. It shows up but you have to get there in a timely way because it is just a little bit of three and four year old stuff that occasionally gets uncovered. When it does it is loaded with worms and an occasional salamander. Can't do much better than that. That is what we try to get for fall additions to the patch instead of all new leaves. We can actually go in and have this stuff loaded free on two days a week. We can hand load it any other workday including Saturdays.

My game has always been to mix in manures, green grass as a manure, leaves of all ages, coffee grounds and several neighbors kitchen wastes. When I do it correctly the internal part of the pile reaches 130 degrees and can be held there for two weeks to create Aerobic Quality conditions. Trust me this is not achieved with every pile.

6/1/2004 10:13:00 PM