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Role of earthworm on earth – Earthworm production systems involving waste management are evolving and are in the growth phase where emphasis is upon marketing, inoculum and vermicast.
As the industry matures there will be a need to change the marketing emphasis from “the worm as an inoculum” to “the worm as a value-added marketable product”. Very large quantities of worm products will be available if production systems are designed and managed appropriately.
The integration of waste utilisation with the production of high quality commercial products is an attractive concept and provides real opportunities to the earthworm industry and agricultural processing industries which face increasing waste management issues. This would be a major and sustainable contribution to both urban and rural environmental management. There is thus considerable scope to develop technologies to assist the development of the earthworm industry.
While Australian rural industries are typically based more on an individualistic rather than on active cooperation and coordination approaches, there are a number of instances where a particular industry or section of an industry has adopted a successful collaborative approach to the export or domestic marketing of their produce.
This project aimed to deliver technologies to underpin the development of an earthworm industry which has a range of products including ‘value-added’ worm meal products.
Read more: usefulofworm
How To Harvest Earthworm is easyer than anything else before you thought before…
Generally, a worm bin will have produced a significant amount of good vermicompost at between two and three months along in the process. If you wait even longer, like 4-6 months, you’ll have more finished looking vermicompost (it will look more like soil and have more plant-ready nutrients in it).
Tip – Try harvesting early one time, then letting it go for much longer the next time, so that you can see the difference in finished product.
There are several common ways to separate worms from the vermicompost in your bin.
Dump And Sort
It’s just like it sounds! Dump the entire contents of your worm bin down onto a table (you may want to protect the table with a sheet of plastic first.) Put a light bulb above the table (or use natural light.) Now remove any very fresh-looking bedding, and toss it back into the worm bin for the next go-round.
Then, make many small mounds of vermicompost. Watch and you’ll see the worms move downward, away from light, and bury themselves in the bedding. After a few minutes, you can remove the outer layer of this mound, and put it in your vermicompost bucket. Again the worms will move downward. Just continue like this until you have many little piles of worms.
Worms Sort Themselves
A very simple method indeed. You move all the vermicompost in the bin over to one side, and add fresh bedding to, and begin feeding on, the opposite side. Then,just give the worms time to finish up all the nutrition on the first side (give them a couple of months) and wiggle on over to the fresher bedding and food. The advantage is that it’s really easy; the disadvantage is how long it takes, and that for a period of time, you’re only feeding one half of the bin.
Divide and Dump
This is simplicity itself! Just harvest two-thirds of the worm bin, leaving one-third for the next batch. Yes, you’ll be harvesting worms with the vermicompost you remove, but that’s ok. When you feed your plants, these worms brought along will, eventually, turn into extra nutrients. The worms left behind will repopulate the bin in a few months’ time. Be aware that your worm bin will process less material while the population of worms is diminished.
Now, if you have invented another method of harvesting worms, please tell us and we’ll publish your story.
No matter how hard we hobbyists try to screen our vermicompost, it usually will contain lots of cocoons and baby worms. If you want to try to keep these young worms from being harvested with the vermicompost, and try to hatch the unborn ones, then do the following: place all your vermicompost into one or more large containers, place some attractive food on top, and cover the entire surface with a layer of cardboard. Melon rind is a great attractant to use, though apple cores will also work.
Two ways you can increase the percentage of castings in your vermicompost are by:
keeping a high population of worms and
making sure that material stays in the worm bin and is worked by worms as long as possible.
Your worms have taken your food waste and produced an excellent, all-natural fertilizer. Add vermicompost whenever you plant seeds or move starts outdoors. Simply mix a small amount of it into the planting hole. A quarter cup per small plant will give them a significant boost.
With older plants and houseplants, top dress with vermicompost twice a year. Scratch the surface of the soil to mix it in.
5/8 Streest No 15, Binh An Ward, Dist 2, Hochiminh City – Vietnam
Tel: 8498.3346179 – Fax: 8428-62810261
Email: wormvns@gmail.com
Zalo: +840983346179
Marble goby and Tra catfish fed with Earthworm becomes hot tittle for science not only Vietnam, but also worldwide
The first study on the growth of earthworms (Perionyx excavates) was a 2*2 factorial experiment with 4 replicates, in which the treatments were: source of manure (cow or buffalo) and supplementation with water hyacinth at 25% of the weight of manure (DM basis) or none.
Adding chopped water hyacinth to buffalo or cattle manure led to a decrease in worm numbers and in productivity per kg DM and crude protein of added substrate. Relative growth in numbers and in weight of the worms was similar on manure derived from buffaloes and cattle.
The negative effect of water hyacinth was greater with buffalo than with cattle manure. Residual compost from cattle manure was richer in N and poorer in ash than compost derived from buffalo manure. Water hyacinth added to the substrate resulted in compost with less N but more ash.
The second study included two experiments. The first experiment was on the growth performance of Marble goby and Tra catfish fed diets of trash fish and rice field prawns replaced (on an iso-nitrogenous basis) with 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% of frozen earthworms (Perionyx excavates).
The weight gains of Marble goby and Tra catfish, and the survival rate of the Marble Goby, decreased markedly with curvilinear trends as the proportion of frozen earthworms in the diet was increased (Experiment 1). The Tra catfish appeared to adapt better than the Marble goby to the frozen worms.
The second experiment, which was designed to test the hypothesis that the poor growth rates with frozen earthworms were due to the low palatability of the earthworms after being frozen, confirmed the negative effects of this method of conservation.
Growth rates were 4 and 2 times greater for Marble goby and Tra catfish, respectively, when they were fed fresh rather than frozen earthworms. Survival rate was 100% on the fresh earthworm diet…..
Read more: Nhi_N_100909
Effective of Earthworm in aquaculture development as replacement for trash fish and rice field prawns on growth and survival rate of marble goby (Oxyeleotris marmoratus) and Tra catfish (Pangasius hypophthalmus)Nguyen Huu Yen Nhi, T R Preston*, Brian Ogle** and Torbjorn Lundh**
An Giang University, 25 Vo Thi Sau St., Long Xuyen City, Vietnam
nhynhi@agu.edu.vn
* TOSOLY, AA 48 Socorro, Colombia.
** Department of Animal Nutrition and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences,
P.O. Box 7024, 750 07, Uppsala, Sweden.
Two experiments were carried out in the research farm of An Giang University. The first experiment was a study on the growth performance of Marble goby and Tra catfish fed diets of trash fish and rice field prawns replaced (on an iso-nitrogenous basis) with 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% of frozen earthworms (Perionyx excavates).
The weight gains of Marble goby and Tra catfish, and the survival rate in the Marble Goby, decreased markedly with curvilinear trends as the proportion of frozen earthworms in the diet was increased (Experiment 1).
The Tra catfish appeared to adapt better than the Marble goby to the frozen worms. The second experiment, which was designed to test the hypothesis that the poor growth rates with frozen earthworms was due to the low palatability of the earthworms after being frozen, confirmed the negative effects of this method of conservation.
Growth rates were 4 and 2 times greater for Marble goby and Tra catfish, respectively, when they were fed fresh rather than frozen earthworms. Survival rate was 100% on the fresh earthworm diet.
Read more: Effect of earthworms as replacement for trash fish and rice field prawns on growth and survival rate of marble goby
The Benefit of Earthworm in Agriculture, Earthworm have many benefits. In fact, many people who eat it to cure some disease, without effects, so safe to consume.
According to the experiences of people who had experienced a fever or high body temperature, with an extra ingredient earthworms eat their disorders improved.
According to research ever done that earthworms are very high source of protein. Earthworms also contains several amino acids with a high level. One of them, worm Lumbricus rubellus contain very high protein content approximately 76%. This concentration is higher than mammal meat (65%) or fish (50%).
Several studies have proven the existence of the antibacterial power of protein extraction results of worm that can inhibit the growth of gram-negative bacteria Escherichia coli, Shigella dysenterica, Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella thypi.
Usefulness earthworms affect important organs of the body. Some properties of earthworms are:
Typus Cure
Lowering cholesterol levels
Increase endurance
Lowering high blood pressure
Improve appetite
Treating digestive tract infections such as typus, dysentery, diarrhea, and other stomach disorders like ulcers
Treat diseases such as respiratory tract infection: cough, asthma, influenza, bronchitis and tuberculosis
Reduce aches due to fatigue or due to rheumatic
Lowering blood sugar levels of diabetes
Treat hemorrhoids, exim, allergies, injuries and illness
In addition to making purposes is extracted herbal medicine, earthworms can also be processed into poultry feed and fish feed (pellet). Considering the number of poultry farmers in Indonesia and pemubudidaya fish, worms processing into feed material has a bright prospect.
In addition to protein-rich (50-72%), earthworms also contains several amino acids is very important for birds such as arginine (10.7%), tryptophan (4.4%) and tytosin (2.25%). These three amino acids are rarely found in other feedstuffs.
Therefore, earthworms have the potential both to replace fish meal in poultry rations and can save material usage of grains up to 70%. Nevertheless, the use of earthworms in poultry rations is recommended no more than 20% of the total ration.
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Using insects as an alternative to the conventional animal feed has been researched for quite some time now, ranging from flies to insect larvea, this new alternative could be the answer to the ever increasing price of animal feed. Now Earthworms – An animal feed alternative are being bred as an alternative feed source, and the waste is being seen as a rich fertilzer. A win-win some would say.
Most farmers apply fertilizers and all kinds of manure such as human waste and animal urine on their farms to improve production. They also mulch as an agronomic practice to improve on productivity. Those engaged in dairy, poultry and fish farming use feed made out of varying mixtures that include bran, husks, stover and other matter.
However, this time around, they are being introduced to a technology of using earthworms to serve the same purpose. Scientists at Makerere University Agricultural Institute Kabonyolo (MUARIK) started rearing the earthworms under a programme known as management of manure for vermin compost, where they mix maize bran with food remains and cow dung with water as a bulk material for the worms to feed on.
Mr Charles Azizi Dara, a foreman in the machinery section at MUARIK, says the team started the rearing earthworms about a year ago. It was an initiative to address the challenge faced by poultry and fish farmers in purchasing feed at high price as well as to address the use of organic manure by farmers growing crops.
Earthworms take one month to mature but their life span is two years. They do not lay eggs but cocoons. These begin hatching once the cocoons are mature causing rapid multiplication of its generation.
Poultry and fish farmers can give their chicken and fish either live worms or they can harvest them and mix with other feeds such as milled fish, maize bran and husks for the same feeding process.
“Farmers can venture into earthworm rearing as a side business because the process is not labour-intensive and besides, farmers who grow crops and rear either chicken or fish can gain in both ways because the waste matter of these worms can be used as manure, which will result into high yields of the crops,” Dara said.
Nankinga suggests instead of farmers coming to the institute to purchase the worms as parent stock, they should become “outgrowers” to supply fellow farmers. This is because the worms can be harvested in swampy and moist places and as long as farmers have the interest in breeding them, they can also search for parent stock.
Source: Daily Monitor
Product from An Phu Earthworm Company
How Making worm tea easy from earthworm casting? Do you own a worm bin and wonder what the liquid that forms in the bottom tray is? It is worm tea, sometimes it is also called “vermiwash.” You may not be aware but there are numerous benefits of using worm tea in your soil. Worm tea is a natural fertilizer which is used to promote the growth of plants. If you own a wriggly wranch bin, worm tea forms in the bottom tray that can be drained from the spigot. If you are a gardening enthusiast, you can use worm tea to replenish the soil with nutrients and protect plants from many plant diseases.
Worm tea has the same benefits as worm castings, but in liquid form. Castings are produced when worms break down the organic matter in the soil. It is also called “worm manure” or “worm humus.” These castings are present in the worm beds. When you run water through these castings, nutrients such as nitrogen, calcium and magnesium are picked up. The process of harvesting worm castings is called “vermicomposting.”
For making worm tea, you will need a large bin or worm compost bin, such as the Wiggly Wranch bin. The bottom tray should have a drainage spout and holes for aeration. Soak a handful of worm castings in at least 5 liters of warm water.Allow the castings to soak for a couple of days. Next add a teaspoon of molasses (optional). Molasses will promote the growth of micro-organisms.
If you feed your worms a balanced diet such as fruits and vegetables (no meat or dairy) they will produce the best castings and worm tea. The water must be chlorine free because chlorine will destroy the “good” bacteria. To help conserve water, rain water is a good source of unchlorinated water to use. Pete Ash, an experienced gardener, long time master composter, and organic farming and gardening teacher, crafts a tea bag of the compost and vermicompost to soak in water.
He suggests using an aquarium pump to keep the water aerated to stimulate micro-organism growth. Pete says, “The idea is to wash the microbes out of the compost into the water; adding a simple starch or sugar to the brew to feed the bacteria that are breeding. Use the wash water from rice rather then washing it down the drain.”
The best way to use worm tea is to dilute it. Pete owns a few Wriggly Wranch bins. He dilutes the worm tea with 4 to 6 parts water (or more) for foliar spray applications. He also recommends using the tea within a couple of days and as it accumulates it may spoil. It is not clear to anyone how long worm tea should brew for, but if it smells bad you should not use it. Pete harvests his castings regularly because the mucus can build up along with bacteria and can actually become toxic for the worms. As Pete says, “No one likes to live in their own feces.”
Worm tea and compost are excellent for a garden. People uses worm tea as a foliar spray and compost tea as a field spray. There are many, many uses for worm tea. Here are a few ways to use worm tea to grow healthy fruits and vegetables:
Use worm tea as an inoculant for potting soil. The nutrients in worm tea help seedlings grow strong. It is suggested that inoculation should be done two weeks before you plant your seedling.
Worm tea also helps recover polluted soil. If you repeat the worm tea applications, the microbes will convert and metabolize organic and inorganic chemicals. The worm tea will help sequester the heavy metals found in chemicals.
Sometimes lawns can become sterile due to chemical treatment. Worm tea will repopulate the soil with microbes, enrich the roots and break down the thatch turning it into food for grass.
During hot summer days, worm tea can help retain water in soil.
If you decide to use worm tea as a foliar spray, it will help your plants produce more foliage and larger stems. This greatly helps plants that are lacking enough sun.
You may also add worm tea to a compost pile to speed-up the break-down process.
By using worm tea, you can help the environment by reducing and even eliminating the use of chemical fertilizers that can cause water pollution. Studies show an average American family produces a ton of waste each year. The estimate is 1/3 or ½ of household waste is organic matter (kitchen waste). So Making worm tea easy from earthworm casting is best.
If you vermicompost, you will reduce the amount of organic matter that ends up in landfills, help mitigate global warming and make nitrogen-rich organic fertilizer and worm tea for yourself. Vermicomposting is nature’s way of completing the recycling loop. If you are interested in learning about “the circle of life…the circle of rot” please refer to our March 2003 newsletter for a discussion of why you should compost, how this is improves healthy soil, which in turn creates healthy vibrant plant life.
Any question about Making worm tea easy from earthworm casting, please fill free to contact us:
5/8 Streest No 15, Binh An Ward, Dist 2, Hochiminh City – Vietnam
Tel: 8498.3346179 – Fax: 8428-62810261
Email: wormvns@gmail.com
Zalo: +840983346179
Composting worms not only need food, but also some sort of habitat to live in – Earthworm compost bedding materials provide both.
Ideal worm living conditions can be created initially by adding lots of bedding material with a decent amount of waste material (and likely some water to ensure adequate moisture conditions).
People often refer to the ideal composting moisture content as being similar to that of a wrung-out sponge.
Higher moisture levels do tend to work better for worm composting, but this is definitely a good guideline to start with (especially when using a water-tight bin).
Some great materials for bedding include shredded cardboard (my favorite), shredded newspaper, aged straw, coconut coir, fall leaves and peat moss (although I prefer not to use this material since it is not harvested in a sustainable or environmentally-friendly manner).
Worms seem to absolutely love rotting leaves, so definitely don’t be so quick to kick those bags to the curb in the fall.
The downside of using leaves (aside from seasonality) is the fact that they don’t really absorb much water – this is why my ideal bedding will consist of a mix of leaves and brown cardboard (another material worms seem to have a real affinity for).
Earthworm compost bedding will typically need to be moistened before worms are added. In fact, a practice I highly recommend when starting a new bin is mixing bedding with a decent amount of moist food waste, then simply letting the mixture sit in a closed bin for a week or so before adding worms.
This way you are creating a very friendly environment for your worms to live in. Aside from activating the important microbial community, this also allows for moisture to makes its way throughout the bin materials.
5/8 Streest No 15, Binh An Ward, Dist 2, Hochiminh City – Vietnam
Tel/Zalo: 8498.3346179 – Fax: 8428-62810261
Email: wormvns@gmail.com
Food for worm – think of!!! Usually people set up their own worm bin at home so they can compost their food scraps and leftovers.
These are fairly basic guidelines and of course there are exceptions under certain circumstances. I will definitely be going into much more detail in later articles.
Something I alluded to in the previous section was the fact that letting your waste material sit for a period of time is better than adding it right away. Often people assume that the worms feed directly on the waste materials themselves.
As I mentioned above, a fantastic way to ensure that your new bin takes off successfully is to mix a decent quantity of waste material in with your fresh bedding, then simply letting the bin sit for a week or so before adding the worms. I know this can be a challenge for those people anxious to get started, but it will go a long way in terms of ensuring your success.
Should you choose not to wait (obviously if you get your worms at the same time you get your bin it doesn’t make sense to wait) I would highly recommend that you at least try to add some partially rotting materials so that the worms have something to feed on.
I like to keep food waste in an old milk carton that sits under my sink. Aside from the convenience of not needing to take it down to the basement (where my indoor bins are located) or outside (to my outdoor bin) multiple times per day, this also allows time for microbial colonization of the materials – and don’t worry, you won’t have a stinky mess in your container if you do it properly.
Worm bin materials can be made of almost any material, however, wood and plastic are the most common. Below are several advantages and disadvantages to each material.
CAUTION – Never use pressure-treated lumber to build your worm bin. This lumber has been treated with a variety of chemicals that can become quite toxic to your worms.
Note – If you plan to use the liquid (worm leachate) that drains from your bin, please read the following information before using it on your plants.
Worm composting Vietnam – Red wiggler worms (Eisenia species) can be used for composting kitchen scraps and organics. This species of worm “red worms” or “red wriggler” is hardy and reproduces quickly. One pound of worms consumes up to 1/2 pound of food scraps per day.
Worm composting is an odor-free way to dispose of your kitchen waste. Another benefit of “vermicomposting” or worm composting is that it produces worm castings that are excellent plant fertilizer. Worm composting Vietnam can be done indoors or outdoors.
There are many ways to set up Worm composting Vietnam: from a covered wooden box in your backyard to a ventilated tray system or modified rubbermaid bin for indoor use. About 1 square foot of bin is needed for each pound of worms. Make sure excess water can drain out of your bin either into the ground or into a collection tray. Another basic: protect the bin from hot sun and freezing.
Your compost bin may come with instructions for how to begin, but here are the basics:
Fill your bin half full of bedding. Bedding can include some or all of the following: shredded cardboard, shredded newspaper, coconut coir, straw, or fallen leaves. This is the carbon-rich brown component required for composting. The worms will eat this bedding during the process.
Next, add a handful of regular garden soil to the bedding. Soil contains microbes and grit that they need to break down their food.
Also, if you are waiting for your worms to arrive in the mail, you can prepare the habitat a week or so before their arrival by adding the garden soil and a handful of vegetable scraps to the moist bedding to start the process.
The next step is to add the worms with their compost to the top of the bedding. They’ll crawl down into the bedding.
Food scraps that worms will break down easily include fruit, vegetables, egg shells, bread, pasta, rice, tea bags, and coffee grounds. It is recommended that meat and dairy be disposed of through your municipality, but tiny quantities of these mixed with your other foods shouldn’t be a problem.
Foods that red wigglers don’t like are raw potato peels, onions, oily sauces, pineapple, citrus, salty foods, and chilies, so do not add large quantities of these items to your worm bin.
The worms will begin to feed on the food scraps in a couple of weeks.
After a few weeks the worms will be established and begin breaking down the first batch of food scraps and bedding. At this time you can add more scraps to different parts of the bin up to 1/2 pound of food per day per pound of worms.
If the bin smells of rotten food scraps or if you have fruit flies, make sure you are burying the food scraps in the bedding. Add more bedding to the top if necessary. You may also want to add fewer food scraps for a while or move your bin to a cooler location. Part of the fun is experimentation.
Monitor the bin for moisture and add water if the bedding is drying out. Liquid can be emptied out of the bottom of a rubber bin, but if you have to do this more than once a month, you are adding too much water.
After several months you can collect the earthworm castings. If you’re using a worm bin
the worms will migrate to the top trays so you can collect compost from the bottom trays.
With other types of bins there are a few other ways to collect the finished compost.
One way to separate the worms from the castings is to dump the bin onto a tarp under light. The worms will crawl to the centre and you can collect the top layers of soil. If you keep taking soil off, the worms will end up in a ball in the centre!
Another way to collect the castings is to start feeding the worms on just one side of the bin. After a few weeks, they’ll be gathered on that side and you can take the new castings from the other side.
When you’ve emptied a bin or section, fill it with fresh bedding to start the process again.