[Gasification] Forest Duff & Earthworms - Off Topic ?

[Anand Karve]

Dear Jeff,
one of the points that is missed in most discussions on earthworms is
the fact that earthworms are miniature biogas plants. Ms Hemangi
Jambhekar, a lady selling earthworm compost as a business, told me
that earthworm casts had unusually high iron content. The soil in our
area is rich in iron, but the iron, being Fe2O3(ferric oxide) is not
soluble in water and therefore soil analysis shows our soils to be
poor in iron. When this soil passes through the gut of an earthworm,
the anaerobic micro-organisms in the gut take a part of the oxygen
from the Fe2O3  for their own metabolism and convert the Fe2O3 into
FeO(ferrous oxide), which is water soluble. Similarly, the casts of
worms contain many other organic and inorganic components of the soil
in their reduced form. The reduced compounds serve the soil microbes
as food, because they can oxidise them to obtain energy for their own
metabolism. This causes an increase in the population density of soil
microbes. It is a universally accepted fact that the population
density of soil microbes is positively correlated to soil fertility.
Yours
A.D.Karve

On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 10:29 PM, Jeff Davis <jeffdavis0124 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Kind of off topic:
>
>
> Aren't earthworms good for soil and gardens?
>
> It depends. Earthworms create a soil of a certain consistency. For soils
> that are compacted due to heavy use by agriculture and urbanization, for
> example, earthworm tunnels can create "macro-pores" to aid the movement of
> water through the soil. They also help incorporate organic matter into the
> mineral soil to make more nutrients available to plants. However, in
> agricultural settings earthworms can also have harmful effects. For
> instance, their castings (worm excrement) can increase erosion along
> irrigation ditches. In the urban setting, earthworm burrows can cause lumpy
> lawns.
>
> Relative to simplified ecosystems such as agricultural and urban/suburban
> soils, earthworm-free hardwood forests in Minnesota have a naturally loose
> soil with a thick duff layer. Most of our native hardwood forest tree
> seedlings, wildflowers, and ferns grow best in these conditions. However,
> when earthworms invade they actually increase the compaction of hardwood
> forest soils. Compaction decreases water infiltration. Less infiltration
> combined with the removal of the duff and fallen tree leaves results in
> increased surface runoff and erosion.
>
> <http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialanimals/earthworms/index.html>
>
>
>
> Jeff
>
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-- 
***
Dr. A.D. Karve
Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)