Here are the facts about earthworms for your farms.
In our consulting practice, we often discover soil which lacks important nutrients and other beneficial characteristics. Soil which lacks stable humus and active living organisms is difficult to prepare for growing plants which are able to thrive.
Compacted soil, water saturated soil, and soil which lacks microbial life and nutrient balance can not serve our needs as gardeners or growers.
Soil which seems to be sterile or dead can be revived by returning nutrient-available, stable humus to root zones.
An uncomplicated soil feeding plan, with appropriate action, can improve soils where growers have found it impossible to grow healthy plants. The plan includes amending well digested organic matter into at least the top six inches of soil where conditions had previously prevented healthy plant growth. Soil needs to be alive and full of beneficial bacteria, micro-flora, earthworms, springtails, and a wide variety of "critters," each of many species bringing unique benefits to maintain soil viability.
FOR EXAMPLE:
It is important for anecic earthworms to return to depleted soil, to do their essential work. Many species of earthworms provide services needed in soil for healthy and naturally energetic plant growth. Two of the essential earthworm types we find very helpful are: "eisenia fetida," the composting earthworm, and "lumbricus terrestris," the burrowing earthworm which aerates soil. Actions of both benefit soil tilth, soil fertility, enhance soil and plant disease resistance. The sustained presence of these beneficial soil dwellers is an indication of soil media values which can support plant root extension, plant growth stability, and conditions which allow the process of plant feeding osmosis to continue through the growing season, from germination through harvest.
Expert researchers at the Sustainable Agriculture Program, University of California in Santa Cruz, (the Agroecology Curriculum), Matt Werner and Robert Bugg, have presented scholarly research which provides proof of the importance of various living organisms in soil. It is clear to this researcher that soil must be of a certain quality to sustain the presence of beneficial earthworms and other organisms which provide long term benefits.
MAINTAINING PERPETUAL SOIL VALUE CONDITIONS:
It is important to maintain a balanced porosity in soil strata, to ensure suitable aerobic conditions and to maintain appropriate drainage characteristics. We have learned that soil compaction is prevented where stable humus is maintained in soils. Flooding is less likely where soil granularity is sustained. Adding well composted organic matter helps these valuable soil conditions to continue, and the earthworms help such values to continue.
In soils prepared to be acceptable and habitable to the anecic earthworm tribes, undeniable plant-root values exist. For this and other reasons, it is important to continue to process and prepare high humus soil amendments with two main thoughts in mind: 1. We want to ensure that soil is properly fed. 2. We want to invite, establish, and maintain populations of "lumbricus terrestris" and "eisenia fetida."
Earthworms are our friends and happy helpers in the root zone.
