Subject: Re: redworms

From: Victor Guest <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 13:53:08 WST

>Hi, Victor,
>
>Just a note to respond to the kitchen-scrap/manure eating redworm info 
>I recently looked into redworms in depth, including visiting several farms
>and meeting with the Science Editor for Worm Digest Magazine, and here will
>share some basic info. 
>Academician and practicing experts both agree, doubling populations of
>redworms in 30 days is about optimal (this is unrealistic for a new system
>where food is not yet in available bacterial form). The 30-day figure is
>based on feeding with rotted horse manure, a rich source of the bacteria
>the redworms digest. Using kitchen scraps (1-1/2 surface square feet of
>worm bed for each kitchen-scrap-producing family member), it can take 1 to
>3 months for the redworms to double. Bury the scraps under an inch of soil,
>start the beds a week or so before getting the worms since the scraps will
>take a while to start breaking down. Shredded cardboard operates as a
>bedding, as opposed to a food source (they will eat it, along with
>everything else in their path, as they consume their weight in soil/food
>each day!).

In the permaculture garden I am looking after, what started out as a small 
worm farm, is now being used for producing lots of very good mulch.
I can virtually put any shredd organic material onto a garden bed (in open
ended cylinders) 1m in diameter, and 1.5m high and the worms will demolish 
it in 2-3 weeks.
Currently, I have a multi level worm farm, an inverted cone, and an open 
ended cylinder all producing castings for the garden.  

The red -blood worms are all throught the garden, and the harvesting is of 
interest.
Has anyone used bran as a mlure to harvest worms with.

Separating redworms from soil is what justifies the $15/pound (about 1200=
>
>worms)... the 'hurricane harvester' worm separator is accurately named,
>mangling the little fellas through about 40 revolutions along its 8 foot
>length before dumping the worms out the end--some actually alive. =
>
>
>Seeing several worm-wrangling operations, the only one making money was
>very low-tech, very basic... long beds of manure (rotted--past the point 
>of heating up!) about 16 inches deep and 3 feet wide, on the ground and 
>held in place by plywood and stakes, with a drip/misting system operated 
>by hand about 10 minutes per day (redworms like 60 to 80% moisture, pretty 
>wet, water can be squeezed out of a handful). Sales were to a large network
>of bait shops. Worms were harvested from concentrated areas (several inches
>below surface in concentrated food areas) and put into bait cups with
>attendant soil (the worms will be denser than the soil in these areas)...

The Farm sytem used windrows of farm waste, with a sprinkler system on the
top of the windrow. They originally sowed the worms into the windrow and 
let them loose until they had converted the waste into worm casts.
Then they simply built another windrow alongside the original and moved the 
sprinklers onto the new windrow.
when they were happy that most of the worms had moved, they topdressed
the worm casts onto pastures. Worm segments were then on the 
pastures to work with dung beatles to use up manure from the stock.
The value here was in the worm casts not selling the worms.

>the hurricane harvester was in a back lot covered in weeds (thank god!).
>The owner shared information with us freely, an old guy who'd seen too many
>operations come and go to feel threatened in the least... mostly just kinda
>amused.

>A very clean, fairly large high-tech operation with hurricane harvester,
>sturdy 4' x 8' beds, lots of people, was losing money at an impressive
>rate. 

>To start successfully, build beds 18" deep of well-rotted manure, use cheap
>materials, start setting up bait shop network contacts before investing
>heavily (I believe I'd just put the worms in the garden under mulch and
>feed the scraps there, just under the mulch, to let them do some helpful
>digging). Avoid high-tech or expensive gadgets... they're worms, for god's
>sake! Good luck, it's sure lots of fun to farm the little guys, even if not
>a short road to wealth.

>Jack Rowe
>[email-masked]

 Thanks everyone.
 
Regards,
          Vic
--
Victor Guest   V.G.Guest                       Perth, Western Australia
[email-masked]                 1 Annato Street Greenwood 6024 
                ----: Sustainable Agriculture :----   Tel. (09) 2464674
--: The Land Management Society & The Permaculture Association:---
              --:http://www.eepo.com.au/permacul.html:-
          -----: Men Of The Trees, Holistic Management :------
       ------: Revaluation Co-Counseling Landmark Education:------
                -----: AAEE  and Greenteach :-----
                 http://www.eepo.com.au/~victor/
   http://www.cowan.edu.au/~paustin/ipc6 for the proceedings of the 
               Permaculture Convergence on line