Vermaplex and black casting from worms can benefit the home gardner, farmer, or anyone who wants the nicest yard on the block. Strong healthy plants and grass need to have strong, healthy soil and that’s how the products at Vermitechnology help. The trend of just dumping chemicals and fertilizers into your pants and crops to make them grow faster and bigger has upset the soils natural balance. Contact Vermitechnology for great prices on quality products!
Good Earth explains the benefits of worm castings and vermicompost products.
Biological Decomposition
The decomposition rate of many biological materials is dramatically increased with the addition of worm castings. Testing has shown the decomposition of prawn and crab shells is doubled when worm castings are added to the soil medium. These shells cannot become valuable in the soil until they are fully decomposed.
Beneficial Nematodes
Some nematodes are harmful and others beneficial. The harmful nematodes are root eaters that can destroy plants, and switcher nematodes that eat fungus then switch to consuming roots. Beneficial nematodes are fungus eaters. Research by Dr. Elaine Ingham at the Soil Foodweb, Inc. lab in Corvallis, OR has shown that worm castings have only the beneficial fungus-eating nematodes.
Fungus Control
Four published university research projects have shown that the complete soil food biology found in worm castings can quickly control fungus problems on a long term basis. Fungus-eating protozoa and fungus-eating nematodes are found in the worm castings. Fungus is an important part of healthy soil but causes nitrogen lock-up and other problems when it gets out of control. Using worm castings as a part of the soil mix will control fusarium, rhyzoctonia, phytophthora, and sclerotinia fungi, and will provide improved plant growth with the release of excess nitrogen as the soil fungi are brought into balance.
Odor Elimination
Worm castings can very quickly and effectively eliminate odors. Mix 10 percent worm castings with compost or composted dairy manure, horse manure, or chicken manure and the objectionable odors are eliminated within a few hours. With the addition of worm castings, animal manures can be used as effective fertilizers without the offensive odors. Worm castings have been tested for odor absorption compared to activated charcoal and found to be more efficient and much less expensive than activated charcoal.
Insect Repellency
Testing has shown that several microorganisms found in worm castings work as effective repellants for a large array of insects. A key element for insect repellency is the level of chitinase-producing organisms. Chitinase is an enzyme that will dissolve chitin. The exoskeleton of bugs is made of chitin [so obviously they don’t want to hang out where their skeletons will get dissolved!]. Bugs have various detection mechanisms to determine the level of chitinase in plants and soil. Once the chitinase level is high enough, they will leave the area. Worm castings test with a very high level of chitinase-producing organisms.
Also, some elements in worm castings are able to activate the chitinase-producing organisms found inside plants. Once triggered, these organisms multiply to a level that can be detected by the insects. The repellency effectiveness has been tested and confirmed for white fly, aphids, spider mites and various other bugs. Twenty various plants have been tested showing effectiveness. The rate of repellency is in direct relation to the size of the plant. Spider mites will leave houseplants in about 2 weeks, aphids leave roses in about 6 weeks, and white flies will leave full sized hibiscus in about 3 months.