I got worms!

We are asked all the time about earth worms. Most of us don’t think of them until it is time to go fishing, but earth worms may be the most important livestock on your farm. Jerry Brunetti, world renowned consultant calls them the "chicken-cow"of the soil. They have a gizzard to grind soil and plant particles, but they don’t eat the ground soil. They regurgitate the this mess into their tunnels where this mucousy concoction is fed on by bacteria and fungus. It is this microbiological smorgasbord that the worm actually eats!

How Many Worms Should You Have?

25 earthworms per square foot of soil equal 1 million earthworms per acre. Studies in England have shown that in healthy soil forty tons of castings per acre pass through earthworms bodies daily. A new USA study indicates 1½ million worms per acre which move 20 tons of earth each year. Studies by the National Soil Tilth Lab have shown that with good food sources and favorable conditions, a field might have over 100 worms per square yard.

Just like cattle and chickens, worms produce high quality fertilizer, but they take it a step further and happily till your fields.

This plowing by tunneling provides the soil with passageways through which air and water can circulate. This is important because soil microorganisms and plant roots need air and water just like we do. Without some kind of plowing, soil becomes compacted, air and water can't circulate in it, and plant roots can't penetrate it.

This tunneling activity helps breakup hardpan and other compacted soils. Studies have shown that 30% of a fields respiration during cold wet winter-spring months are due to earthworms. Another study in European orchards found that earthworms could increase the pore space in soil by 75-100%

More than simply plowing the worms are depositing fertilizer. This is something we should appreciate because earthworm droppings -- called castings is some of the highest quality fertilizer available. The weight of casts produced from all this burrowing and feeding may be greater than 10 lb per worm per year, in itself an indicator of why it pays the gardener or farmer to keep worm populations high.

An analysis of worm castings when compared to the parent soil shows:

7 times the available phosphorous
6 times the available nitrogen
11 times the available potassium
3 time the available magnesium
2 times the available carbon
1.5 times the available calcium
Worm casts can contain 40% more humus

Worm Life

The secret to earthworm travel lies in two things you can't see just by looking. Though earthworms have no bones, their complex system of muscles enables them to not only wiggle like crazy but also to very quickly alternate between being stubby and thick, and long and slender

Earthworms possess tiny, practically invisible bristles, called setae (pronounced SEE-tee; singular form seta, pronounced SEE-tah), which usually are held inside their bodies. When the worms want to stay in their burrows, they jab their setae into the surrounding dirt, thus anchoring themselves in place. This comes in handy if a bird nabs a worm's head and tries to pull the worm from its burrow. The setae anchor the worm so well that it may break before coming out.

When the soil gets very cold, very hot, very wet or very dry, it's hard on an earthworm. A typical behavior is to tunnel deeper into the soil, to where conditions aren't so extreme. Some species, especially during hot, dry periods, roll themselves into balls and excrete mucous around themselves, creating a kind of cocoon. In such a state their body functions slow down drastically. They go into a kind of suspended animation, just waiting for soil conditions to improve.

When digging for worms you may find their lemon-shaped incubator (cocoon). This is where embryonic worms develop. They emerge as small, but fully formed earthworms, except for a lack of the sex structures, which develop later in about 60 to 90 days. They attain full size in about one year, sometimes sooner. Scientists predict that the average lifespan under field conditions is 4–8 years, still most garden varieties live only one to two years.

FUN WORM FACTS

Earthworms don't have eyes, but they do have light-sensitive cells scattered in their outer skin. These cells don't enable earthworms to see images, or forms, but they do give their skin the capacity to detect light and changes in light intensity. The worm's skin cells are also sensitive to touch and chemicals
Earthworms have simple brains which specialize in directing body movement in response to light, and not much else. To show how simple the brain is, if an earthworm's brain is removed, changes in its general behavior are hardly noticeable
Earthworms, as the drawing above shows, possess five hearts. The calciferous glands shown between the hearts manage excess calcium in the worm's diet, a problem you may have if you eat a lot of dirt.
Earthworms have no lungs. Their "breathing" consists of oxygen from the air passively diffusing through the skin into the body. One problem with having such permeable skin is that earthworms dry out easily.

More Worm Facts at http://mypeoplepc.com/members/arbra/bbb/id19.html

See what kind of results can be achieved when managing for worms and biology.

Sources:

http://www.backyardnature.net/earthwrm.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthworm

Picture Credits:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/goosmurf/3828755105/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dodo-bird/477499086/sizes/s/

Rather go fishing than farm?

In the hills of Arkansas, some folks collect fishing worms using “The MucCulloch Chainsaw Method.”

Begin by driving a 3-foot wooden stake 6-8 inches in the soil.

Place the wide bottom of a running chainsaw on top of the stake

Wait for the worms to surface as they are coaxed from the soil by the chain saws vibration

Source: Outdoor life

Alternatively could be used to gauge how many worms you have in a field!

Yield Starts Here is a blog for farmers, focusing on increasing yield and profitability by focusing on the soil. It is managed by Craig Dick, a Blogronomist and Sales and Marketing Manager at Calcium Products. Find other articles by Craig and guest writers at http://blog.calciumproducts.com/ .