
True farmers take advantage of the resources that Mother Nature has placed at their disposal and among them the natural allies of the countryside occupy a prominent place. Some of them have fallen victim to pseudo-scientific theories that in the end have ended up depleting the soils and contaminating food with chemicals harmful to health.
One of these allies, small and industrious, is the earthworm whose beneficial action is known from ancient civilizations such as the Egyptian that attributed the exceptional fertility of the Nile River valley to the enormous numbers of earthworms that developed there.
Aristotle, the Greek sage, considered them as a kind of intestines of the ground, after observing the meticulous action of these small annelids in their environment. In modern times, the eminent scientist Charles Darwin, after 10 years of study, demonstrated the positive function of earthworms in nature and in soil enrichment.
Earthworms
Certainly, earthworms guarantee the hydrogenization of the land and the natural fertilization of the crops, but their results depend on the concentration of these so below I will transcribe a method included within the practices of sustainable agriculture, that which guarantees a harmonious relationship between man and nature.
The method involves creating worm culture pens, where they are fed a concentrate of nutritious waste. Those worms will then act on the nutrient waste and transform it into a decaying mass that serves as fertilizer.
This technique is known as Vermiculture or Vermiculture (worm cultivation) and its objective is to produce an organic substance called Humus that, well worked, guarantees a stable supply of nutrients as necessary as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, humic acids, organic matter and a pH adequate for the development of crops.
Humus has a characteristic dark colour. Their mass, density and particular nature is easily identifiable, which makes it easier to recognize when the production process of worms has reached its best.
When the natural conditions of the fields are not favourable, artificial pens can be manufactured at different scales, where a constant water source and a supply of food for the worms are indispensable.
Among the foods most used by earthworms are the so-called conventional animal manure whether cattle, sheep, pigs, canícula or equine; vegetable residues such as cocoa or coffee pulp and cachaça resulting from the grinding of sugar cane, and unconventional crop remains, bananas, corn, beans, barley; citrus waste, wood scraps, chicken, urban solids.
These products can reach the field with very high levels of acidity and fermentation and that endangers the life of the worms, so they must be mixed with water, clean soil or other related materials.
The most common is that the layer of organic residual on which the worms will feed for about 10 days, should be about 10 centimetres thick, but that depends on the density of worms of the “corral” and the thickness of the organic layer that will be artificially prepared.
You should know that worms never develop in soils with oils, fats, remains of animal tissues, meat or fruits because the decomposition of these generates substances of high acidity. It is also not advisable to use areas of sun or very hot, areas with lack of humidity or dry places or without a stable water supply.
Natural enemies of vermiculture include herbicides, chemicals, disinfectants and other man-made man-made substances; while rodents, birds, frogs and other small vertebrates discuss food with earthworms and include them themselves in their food chain.
Ants, mites, earwigs and centipedes can become stationary pests within hatcheries and in particular ants are dangerous because they can establish their colonies right in the pens.
Worm humus, with all its values as a vegetable fertilizer, should not be used as a dry product on plantations and soils. It is preferable to dilute the final product in specific amounts of water, which allows to achieve the compound known as liquid humus.
Worms instead of chemicals
To prepare it, mix equal amounts of humus and water. Leave it for a week and then filter it and deposit it in clean plastic vessels so that the product does not become corrupted on contact with other substances. This amount, prepared in a 55-gallon tank, for example, should be enough for an average of 200 and 220 applications.
To apply it on the ground, two litres of humus are poured into a fertilizer spreader backpack, along with 14 of water and each plant is irrigated once a week, mainly on the foliage and not on the root, provided that it is not food that is consumed fresh.
The use of worm humus in liquid form advances the flowering of some crops and combats certain pests such as Sigatoka affects the yield and development of bananas. It also stands out for catalysing the birth of seedbeds, whose homogeneity allows an even development of postures.
There are many advantages offered by the application of this technique that does not require artificial or chemical products to guarantee its production. It is, without a doubt, an important ally of man in times of current crisis and an organic means to achieve increasingly natural crops.