What is Vermicompost?

Vermicompost, or castings, is worm manure. Worm castings are considered by many in horticulture to be the very best soil amendment available. There are several reasons for this. The nutrient content of castings is dependent on the material fed to the worms-and worms are commonly fed materials with high nutrient content, such as food waste and manures.

Worm castings provide these nutrients in a form readily available to plants. The biology of the worm’s gut facilitates the growth of fungus and bacteria that are beneficial to plant growth. In addition, many chemical compounds are found in castings that are thought to promote plant growth.

Much of the content of worm castings and their effect on plants is still being studied. Nonetheless, farmers and soils blenders know the benefits of worm castings from their actual affect on plants and product sales, even when the worms are fed low-nutrient materials such as paper fiber.

What are composting, compost, and vermicomposting?

          Composting—the process of managing organic residuals, and the product—compost have been understood by mankind for at least two millennia, and likely longer, with recorded instances of their benefit to soil fertility extending back to the Roman statesman Cato.  Compost is a beneficial substance aiding soil and is produced by the activity of microorganisms upon organic matter.  Since organic matter (food waste, paper waste, agriculture and landscape waste, animal manures, and wastewater residuals) in many societies is abundant and often problematical, composting discarded organic waste matter is a process useful to waste managers who are concerned with, 1. reducing volume of waste and, 2. stabilizing waste that is volatile, inasmuch as it becomes a nuisance for its odor and attraction to vectors.  Thus, composting is attractive to waste managers as a process technology, while the resulting product, compost, is attractive for its horticultural and agricultural benefits.

          Vermicomposting (Latin vermes = worm) is a kindred process to composting, featuring the addition of certain species of earthworms used to enhance the process of waste conversion and produce a better end-product.  Vermicomposting differs from composting in several ways.  Chiefly, vermicomposting is a mesophilic process, utilizing microorganisms and earthworms that are active in a temperature range of 50-90 degrees Fahrenheit. [Not ambient temperature but temperature within the pile of moist organic material.]  The process is considered faster than composting and, because material passes through the earthworm gut, a significant but not-yet-fully-understood transformation takes place, whereby the resulting earthworm castings (worm manure) are abundant in microbial activity and plant growth regulators, and fortified with pest repellency attributes as well!  In short, earthworms, through a type of biological alchemy, are capable of transforming garbage into gold.  Because of this, no less a person than Charles Darwin, a lifelong student of earthworms, wrote at the close of his treatise on earthworm castings, “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures.” (The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through The Action of Worms With Observations on their Habits, 1881).

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Last modified: March 14, 2005