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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Gentlemen, I've seen these posts about
earthworms and finally feel the need to comment.<br>
<br>
I thought the last person to publish material prejudicial to
earthworms was Ewald Wolny (1846-1901) but he was shown to be
wrong by Charles Darwin. Wolny was man enough to acknowledge his
errors and I have always applauded him for this.<br>
<br>
But then, over 120 years later, the state of Minnesota takes up
the cudgels ! The original post about the attitude of Minnesota
to <i>Amynthas agrestis</i> simply displayed the fact that
because a person may be well qualified in one discipline, it
doesn't mean he's qualified in another. Here I refer to the
person who drafted the Minnesota paper on "Crazy worms" and how
damaging to soils they were. What nonsense ! One of the world's
greatest authorities on earthworms (and there are few of these) is
Prof Clive Edwards and last I heard he was at Ohio State Uni, head
of the Entimology Dept. A phone call from Minnesota would have
saved them from publishing such rubbish. "Invasive earthworms"
indeed ! J.M Stockdill of the New Zealand Dept. of Primary
Industry demonstrated that by transplanting (invasive) earthworms
into pasture, that productivity of that pasture was permanently
raised by 25% with no other action taken. Then, Anand Karve
joins in ! I've heard of earthworms being called Bioreactors,
but never biogas plants. Bioreators was a name conferred on
them by Dr. Uday Bhawalkar of the Bhawalkar Earthworm Reasearch
Institute, Pune, India. Most of the matter taken in by earthwoms
in their search for food, passes through their gut unchanged and
this is particularly so for metals. The preferred food for worms
(both compost and earth) is bacteria, with yeasts and asssociated
soil life second. In seeking the bacteria, worms are forced to
take in parent food to which the bacteria have attached
themselves. J.N.Parle (circa 1939) found that some worms could
absorb metals up to a particular level and then the accumulation
ceased. However, no chemical or physical reaction takes place
in any metals passing through the worm's gut and gas being
produced by earthworms is unknown. Castings produced are
aerobic on the outside but the inside anaerobic. The anaerobic
portion would indeed produce some gas but to my knowledge this has
not been measured. <br>
<br>
Some products such as antibiotics were once credited to worms but
this was found to be not so, and it was the bacteria fostered in
the gut which was responsible for the antibiotics. It's an
interesting symbiosis, that while worms create an environment in
their gut in which bacteria thrive, the host worm also consumes
bacteria as food. <br>
<br>
This, and a whole lot of other stuff, is all in my latest book on
the topic, Organic Growing with Worms.<br>
<br>
David Murphy<br>
<br>
On 01/10/2014 1:37 PM, Anand Karve wrote:<br>
</div>
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cite="mid:CACPy7Sf27joX0t6Px_y88tBz++JvCaXtO76b+Le4E3uc0gcQTQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Dear Mark,
I am not an earthworm specialist. I started thinking about earthworms
only when it was reported that the casts of earthworms had an
unusually high iron content. It was then I realised that the guts of
earthworms acted as miniature biogas plants. I would therefore assume
that the microbes in the guts of earthworms converted nitrates into
ammonia, sulphates into H2S, and cellulose (i.e. carbohydrates) into
methane. There might be other chemicals formed by reducing oxidised
minerals i (e.g. silicates) nto their reduced forms, but I am ignorant
of them.
Yours
A.D.Karve
On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 11:23 PM, Mark Elliott Ludlow <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:mark@ludlow.com"><mark@ludlow.com></a> wrote:
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">Dr. Karve,
Do you have a list of those positive effects attributable to earth worms,
particularly those in the biochemical transformational mode?
Thanks, kindly,
Best, Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: Gasification [<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:gasification-bounces@lists.bioenergylists.org">mailto:gasification-bounces@lists.bioenergylists.org</a>] On
Behalf Of Anand Karve
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2014 9:58 PM
To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification
Subject: Re: [Gasification] Forest Duff & Earthworms - Off Topic ?
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 <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:jeffdavis0124@gmail.com"><jeffdavis0124@gmail.com></a>
wrote:
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<pre wrap="">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
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">runoff and erosion.
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialanimals/earthworms/index.html"><http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialanimals/earthworms/in
dex.html></a>
Jeff
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</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
--
***
Dr. A.D. Karve
Trustee & Founder President, Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)
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</pre>
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<pre wrap="">
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