Worms, sex, and bokashi!

[maryjohn]

So I may have noted before the almost unbelievable congregating that happens in my worm bins when I add some bokashi bran to the top.

I assumed they were all there just eating, and are crazy for the food.


sort of.


After adding some lobster carcass and other goodies they normally hate, all of which has been composted bokashi style, I have been watching carefully. It's a thick layer of bokashi on top, so I wasn't expecting to see worms on top of fresh coco today (which was reconstituted using EM). I saw a lone pair, and curiously they did not disperse. Coitus interrupt-us!

I let them be of course, but it got me thinking. Were the displays of the past also mating meetings? Was I really seeing an orgy in honor of aphrodite, or just epicurius? I have noticed explosions of worm populations around EM or bokashi bran feedings .

Is this just perception, or does bokashi and/or EM stimulate sexual appetites in worms?

Can someone try it with LAB culture? this could be a great way to accelerate new worm bins.

 

[odin_]

curiously i wanna see pics

 

[JackTheGrower]

Ah.. I will be wanting to do worms soon. I had to refresh on how they actually do it.
I thought it took two but it doesn't.

url=http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Do_earthworms_reproduce_sexually_or_asexually]Do earthworms reproduce sexually or asexually?[/url]

In: Worms and Centipedes

Answer

Sexually. Earthworms are bisexual, or hermaphroditic, which means that each individual has both male and female sex organs.

The first answer is not completly right. Earthworms have babies asexually and sexually, becasue sexually they can mate with another worm, and asexually becuase a worm can have it by itself ans the baby worm will have the exactly same DNA. Worms also have babies asexually becuase if you cut a worm in half it goes through regeneration and fragementation and that piece becomes a different worm and the other piece regrows.

 

[jaykush]

from my experiences, LAB and char make them go ape nuts. feeding and breeding.

 

[maryjohn]

ah that makes sense, so it may be the lactobacillus in the EM culture they are responding to. I mean the bag bin is throbbing at the surface. It's pure bokashi and coco up there! I have layered and patted it down so it keeps fermenting.

I knew they were breeding or laying before because after spreading the bran I would find many many casings. enough to seed a pot that is resting.

 

[ganja din]

Hey MJ,

I hope we are 'cool'.

Vermiculture worms breed pretty fast, here's what I find to be accurate in my bins. Most "vermiculture" (aka 'composting worms') red worms will lay 3-5 eggs a week and the the "blue worms" worm will lay 15-20 eggs a week. The red worms are bigger but the blue worms outbreed them like crazy. There are also tiger worms but I don't know a whole lot about them. My bins have red, blue and tiger worms; I have more reds and blue is second with a few hundred tigers. I was lucky as my worm lady keeps all three and I get a good mix when I get worms from her.


http://www.thewormman.com/faq.htm

There is nothing wrong with any breed of worm but all breeds differ in breeding and eating patterns, For example, Tiger worms do not breed as prolifically as the Reds, and the Tigers also like colder conditions and prefer not spend as much time in the very top surface area.

The Blue worm is a very hot tropical worm that breeds very prolifically but it also has a shorter life span. It is very hard to breed in consistent volumes all year long because of its breeding patterns and consequently it’s numbers tend to fluctuates greatly.

The most consistent and valuable worm that you will ever use is the red composting worm

HTH

 

[ganja din]

from my experiences, LAB and char make them go ape nuts. feeding and breeding.

Vermiculture worms 'eat' the microbes, as source of food, which is why they 'go ape nuts' (to my understanding). The worms 'consume' the food stuffs (OM - Organic Matter) we place in the bins to get the microbes. To 'eat' the microbes off the OM, the worms process the OM in their 'guts'. They have little pebbles in their which grinds the OM, processing it for microbes. Then before excreting the processed OM as "vermicast", the worms coat it with calcium from a gooey substance in their 'tail'. That is why vermicast (fresh) is a good source of Ca.

Interestingly, PnSB have been found in worm stomachs, and castings.

HTH

 

[jaykush]

yes of course GD.

 

[ganja din]

My bad JK,

Didn't mean to step on toes. I just thought I'd add some context. I assumed you knew what I was writing. Sorry if I seemed preachy to you. When I post I try to write to the whole reading audience, so sometimes I dumb it down too much, sorry.

Later

 

[maryjohn]

Ganja I don't carry disagreements across threads. And yevwe are cool that's what is great about an anonymous board. So easy tobforgive and be forgiven.

So given just red wigglers (wish I had a worm lady), are they reproducing faster with bokashi, or just shifting around activity. I mean, it's uncanny. It really looks like teenagers before and after liquor. And they leave the casings right at the surface it seems, right in the bokashi. Won't they pickle?

 

[jaykush]

no worries GD, i knew all that i just didn't feel it was needed to post. i figured mentioning the char and LAB was enough. both have put my worm bins from normal production to extremely high. the castings are much richer and more active imo since the char powder as added.

 

[maryjohn]

jay you say char? I say bokashi bran... maybe it is not one or the other, but neither and both? What if the worms are just after something easy to eat and the powdered char is colonized after it hits the bin?

I can try with a handful of toasted rice bran.

 

[jaykush]

i say char because i don't make bokashi, and i make biochar. im sure both work for the same reason, loaded with easy to eat worm food! and in turn making some quality castings.

 

[maryjohn]

ohhhhh.... i thought you meant charcoal. I was wondering how that worked but didn't want to seem contrarian. never looked into biochar.

so it's a potato potatoe.

 

[JackTheGrower]

Huh?? Biochar is burn wood yes?

Also I didn't know they ate char or microorganisms.

 

[jaykush]

biochar is a form of charcoal.

organic matter ( mostly wood ) burned in an oxygen free environment.

 

[maryjohn]

I wonder why they like that?

maybe they get indigestion? would go well with bokashi it seems...

 

[blancorasta]

would leonardite work? if so it would also add a fair amount of humics

 

[jaykush]

I wonder why they like that?

the char has a huge surface area and tons of tiny tiny pores. which some call, apartments for microbes. which then get eaten by the worms.

i bet they would love both of them