Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[yarrow@sfo.com]

Title: Re: [Livingontheland] vermiculture

Why vermicompost rather than any other kind of compost? In a snowy-winter climate, I'd be concerned about how to keep the worm boxes protected from the cold for several months. Do you have a barn or other building that stays warm enough to keep worms alive in the winter?

If I had 5 acres, I'd do some windrow composting, using whatever free organics I could scrounge. Or I'd find the highest quality compost I could and make actively aerated compost tea. The list compost_tea@yahoogroups.com

discusses this option.

Also, here's a citation that says the quality of compost or vermicompost depends on the quality of the inputs (no surprise to anyone who's compared homemade compost to anything available commercially!).

Composting vs. Vermicomposting: A Comparison of End Product Quality
Compost Science & Utilization, (2005), Vol. 13, No. 1, 6-13 C.
Tognetti (1), F. Laos (1), M.J. Mazzarino (2) and M.T. Hernández (3)
1. CRUB- Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Bariloche, Argentina 2.
CONICET, Argentina 3. CEBAS- CSIC, Murcia, Spain...

Composts and vermicomposts from a municipal composting plant in
northwestern Patagonia, both having undergone a thermophilic phase,
(with the vermicompost being inoculated with earthworms after the
thermophilic stage) and a nonthermophilic backyard vermicompost were
studied. Their effects on soil biological and biochemical properties
and plant growth were evaluated in laboratory incubations and a
greenhouse trial, using a degraded volcanic soil amended at rates of
20 and 40 g kg-1 of vermicompost or compost. Between the two
municipal products, the vermicompost had significantly larger
nutrient concentrations than the compost; when mixed with the soil,
the vermicompost also had higher microbial populations size and
activity, and produced increased ryegrass yields. Compared to the
municipal compost, the backyard vermicompost had similar or higher
nutrient concentrations but its effects on soil microbial biomass,
soil microbial activity and ryegrass yields were lower. Our results
suggest that no generalization can be made regarding the higher
quality of vermicomposts vs. composts, because the product quality
depends both on the original materials and the technology employed.

At 7:39 AM -0500 12/5/07, Bindweedfarm@aol.com wrote:

I'm sure somewhere in the archives there is info on vermiculture, but as I still have dialup and it takes forever to scroll through the archives, let me post this question:  what are some good sources to learn about vermiculture?  All the weblists I've found have been taken over by spam. If some of you have experience with this, I'd like to hear about it. We grow five acres of cut flowers in Idaho, and our soil has very low organic material content and I'd like to enhance it. I thought worm castings might be a good source. Any thoughts?

 

Ralph Thurston at http://bindweedfarm.com