[duke]

hi all i thought about posting this a while back then promptly forgot!well with the other half sick in bed and a few quiet moments i thought i would tell you about a little sort of accidental worm farm i have inadvertantly started in my coco coir and the amazement i felt at the finding of many and fat healthy looking worms in my rootstock from my last grow.

then it occured to me i had left an open sack of coco on my greenhouse floor and as it was raining the earthworms must have moved in them,well i reuse my coco atleast 5 times before composting it and mixing with composted household waste and leaves for use in the garden so i have a massive compost heap with squillions of worms so the current scrog girls in my diary both had a big handfull of earthworms when potted up.

well after fitting the drippers and running them for 10 minutes i saw something move in the coco and dug around and found the biggest fattest healthiest looking worm i have ever seen!

well i get worms is good in mud or soil and outdoors and seriously doubted there ability to adapt to living in coco being as its very wet 24-7 and you would imagine very little in coco for them to eat,well i got thinking what are they eating exactly?a quick google search and i found a few answers well it seems coco is an ideal habitat for worms being moist but with 30% or so oxygen warmth and little to disturb them they feed on dead roots and do not eat living tissue and looking at this crop compared with previous grow of same strain these are far bigger and healthier this could be just i got a handle on the strain but i really think these earthworms increase yeild and plant health but cant exactly work out how? any one any more idea than google?

i shall have worms in my coco every grow from now on,peace and blessed be the worms!

[duke]

maybe the worm castings add fert to the coco mate.

They will also help oxygenate the root zone with thier little tunnels allowin more oxyjen to the roots.

 

maybe?

well i emptied the buckets from the scrog as the coco has been used 5 times it goes in my compost heap and when i spread it out there was quite a few healthy fat worms so i collected them back up and put them on top of the gdp x mazar scrog about 20 or so and 30 minutes later theres no sign of them so i reckon they settling in now and have a 35 ltr pot to live in now so near doubled there housing size!

but this way i get to see if the worms make a difference or not as the other gdp x m is in new worm free coco and fed the same so in theory if i allow a bit of variance being different phenos i should work out if the worms are of benefit or not,either way i cant see any harm indeed the roots looked healthy as i ever seen and best of all the worms are free!i will get some worm pics later as some of these guys are quiet impressive size and far bigger than the outdoor compost worms so there must be a good food source in there my thought was the fungi mychorhiza maybe and any dead roots which is maybe why i get away with reusing so many times as the worms eat the dead roots,peace

[duke]

hi all as a bit of a continuation of this thread i thought i would post the results of some little possibly useful experiments regarding earthworms and there use as an agent of good in coco esp as i reuse my coco now up to 6 times so far and have not spent a penny on enzymes or any of that stuff what costs any money so i took the used coco which was full of dead roots from all the previous uses blacl bagged it and added a couple of dozen earthworms from my compost heap and stuck it in a corner out of the way this was about 5-6 weeks ago and tonight i used some of the coco which now has very little dead root visible and smells clean and looks like good coco so proving that the worms not only survive but thrive in coco along with cleaning dutys im told there wormdoes (shite) are like instant ferts/steroids for plants so im now sold on this worm malarkey not just in the outdoor garden but the indoor to! mon the earthworm!!!!!!!!!!!

[olmec]

Sounds ace this!!! Any escapes tho lmao?

[CountryBoy]

Interesting stuff duke! I can't see any reason why the worms would be detrimental to your plants, I dunno what their shit would do to the ph though

[duke]

Interesting stuff duke! I can't see any reason why the worms would be detrimental to your plants, I dunno what their shit would do to the ph though

hi cb this run the tree gdp x mazar had lots of worms and normal chem nutes it was half new half used 5 times coco and the other in new ugro coco and so far the coco looks good drains well and run of is within acceptable limits so i dont think they bother ph infact may even be stabilising it some what.but the bag of used stuff amazed me as it had all the little roots from 5 grows and in 5-6 weeks the worms have cleaned it till it looks and feels much as it did when new so my 2 autos have been planted in that and added extra worms and will be doing so allways now and never buy enzymes again,cool more money to spend on seeds!peace

[The Dude Abides]

Hi Duke, only just found this thread, interesting stuff.

 

I always put a couple of worms in each pot for my outdoor grows but not in the Orgasmatron, I may try them in there in future.

 

Are yours ordinary earthworms or the stripey type normally found in compost heaps (I used to call them brandlings when I used them for fishing years ago).

 

All good things

 TDA

[duke]

Hi Duke, only just found this thread, interesting stuff.

 

I always put a couple of worms in each pot for my outdoor grows but not in the Orgasmatron, I may try them in there in future.

 

Are yours ordinary earthworms or the stripey type normally found in compost heaps (I used to call them brandlings when I used them for fishing years ago).

 

All good things

 TDA

hi dude they are bog standard garden worms and theres squillions in my compost which is great just chuck a handfull in when potting up and when my plants finish the coco goes in black bags with lots of worms in and a few weeks later its root free and ready and as organic as you can get i loves me worms,peace

[Horse Badorties]

Hay @duke Very cool info. I've always used coco as the bedding for the worm bin, but I'm going to start making them bed down in the pots for now on  

[olmec]

Hay @duke Very cool info. I've always used coco as the bedding for the worm bin, but I'm going to start making them bed down in the pots for now on

I’ve done this after seeing duke try it and it worked out great for me and them, always more worms at the end than I put in and they grew really big and the plants were very happy