Mirai Podcast Worm Castings

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treeman
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Re: Mirai Podcast Worm Castings

Post by treeman »

GBarb wrote: August 28th, 2020, 9:55 pm
treeman wrote: August 28th, 2020, 2:54 pm
Alan Peck wrote: August 28th, 2020, 9:39 am This thread promted me to ask about GoGo Juice which is touted to be Probiotic. With no NPK values.
Anyone used it with negative results yet.??
The ''probiotic'' claim in liquid preparations is nonsense. Any bacteria found in it would be anaerobic and completely useless in an aerated mix.
Anaerobic bacteria like those in yogurt are fine for your anaerobic gut. Probiotics in a liquid commercial fertilizer?... made up garbage. :P
Respectfully, this is incorrect.

True, at room temps their shelf life will be far reduced, but hetertrophic bacteria used for probiotics (predominantly) can and will survive in a a bottle quite easily, wither in cell or spore form.

And yes, I mean aerobic bacteria.

Fungi dominant is why we want to be promoting for our trees though. Bacteria is good too, but in small doses
Thanks for the info.
Under some conditions the bacteria found in these preparations MAY be beneficial to some plants, but the microbial world, such as it is, is very complex and most beneficial microbes (and the right kinds) are to be found already on and in the roots of healthy plants. All they require is a food source to multiply. In other words, it's the environment around the roots which is important.Trying to add more microbes from these products is mostly useless and a waste of money and effort.
You will get far better results from a three finger pinch of blood and bone than you would from the ''probiotics'' in Go Go juice.
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Re: Mirai Podcast Worm Castings

Post by GBarb »

treeman wrote: August 29th, 2020, 1:51 pm
GBarb wrote: August 28th, 2020, 9:55 pm
treeman wrote: August 28th, 2020, 2:54 pm
Alan Peck wrote: August 28th, 2020, 9:39 am This thread promted me to ask about GoGo Juice which is touted to be Probiotic. With no NPK values.
Anyone used it with negative results yet.??
The ''probiotic'' claim in liquid preparations is nonsense. Any bacteria found in it would be anaerobic and completely useless in an aerated mix.
Anaerobic bacteria like those in yogurt are fine for your anaerobic gut. Probiotics in a liquid commercial fertilizer?... made up garbage. :P
Respectfully, this is incorrect.

True, at room temps their shelf life will be far reduced, but hetertrophic bacteria used for probiotics (predominantly) can and will survive in a a bottle quite easily, wither in cell or spore form.

And yes, I mean aerobic bacteria.

Fungi dominant is why we want to be promoting for our trees though. Bacteria is good too, but in small doses
Thanks for the info.
Under some conditions the bacteria found in these preparations MAY be beneficial to some plants, but the microbial world, such as it is, is very complex and most beneficial microbes (and the right kinds) are to be found already on and in the roots of healthy plants. All they require is a food source to multiply. In other words, it's the environment around the roots which is important.Trying to add more microbes from these products is mostly useless and a waste of money and effort.
You will get far better results from a three finger pinch of blood and bone than you would from the ''probiotics'' in Go Go juice.
Hi Treeman,

Again, I have to disagree with you.

As mentioned in the podcast, things added In commercial preparations do offer an innoculant, but this community changes over time.

The idea is that microbially lacking soils (especially inorganic ones) can and do benefit from an injection of bacteria or fungi (either by microbially active compost or commercial preparations) to kickstart a community.

In some cases, the community may not have diversity or be lacking in any substantial numbers although they.

The blood and bon analogy, this is a food, you need microbes to break it down for it to be available to the plant, by innoculating with outside sources, you introduce these and allow further development of the microbial community by making a more hospitable environment for other microbes.

It may not be useful in all cases as there might be good communities in some circumstances, but in instances with inorganic mixes, watering with chlorinated tap water, reporting etc, innoculating can and will add beneficial microbes to the soil to assist in the root zones development.

I don’t think you can simply write these approaches, products or processes off in all circumstances, as it simply isn’t the case.

G
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Re: Mirai Podcast Worm Castings

Post by GBarb »

jehsiboi wrote: August 28th, 2020, 11:39 pm
GBarb wrote: August 28th, 2020, 1:52 pm Hi guys,

That’s Me.

Anyone got any questions fire away
Hey Gareth well done on the podcast it was really interesting.
I was wondering if you had any information on the NPK of worm castings and if we could feed the worms foods such as soy or canola meal to boost these numbers.

Also I was extremely interested by the idea of passing pumice though your worm farm and then using that pumice in your potting mix, I was wondering if you had more details on how to do this and what would be the benefits.

Cheers
Jesse
Hi there Jesse,

NPK of worm castings, man you thrown a curve ball early on here!!!

It’s not something you can quantify unfortunately without testing.

You notice I talked about engineering work castings by feeding different forms of pre composted material, leaning towards more fungal dominated composts.

In the end, it’s all about the quality of ingredients you put in. Ideally, what I would see as being a great all round casting is a bedding material made of a portion of composted manure and primarily decompsted leaf matter, and then fed very small amounts of a variety of vegetable scraps just to add diversity.

The worm will feed on the bedding material (remembering it’s the microbes they feed off).

In regards to pumice or any other material being used in the mix, just throw it in after you sift it to the size you want and let it work through the castings over the period. Then sift them out when you sift the castings and job done, pumice loaded with humus and microbial activity to boot.

There is so much to go into, this rabbit hole goes deep.
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Re: Mirai Podcast Worm Castings

Post by GBarb »

Rare plant Pat wrote: August 24th, 2020, 12:21 pm I'm sure that worm casting would provide many micro nutrients, but did Gareth say how he used it? I would be a little wary of the fine particles.
Worm castings have a huge spectrum of macro and micro nutrients. But it is dependant on what you feed the worms.

Top dressing is one way, addition into the potting medium is another.

Because it is a very stable form of humus, it doesn’t really break down in the pot.
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Re: Mirai Podcast Worm Castings

Post by terryb »

GBarb wrote: August 29th, 2020, 8:03 pm In the end, it’s all about the quality of ingredients you put in. Ideally, what I would see as being a great all round casting is a bedding material made of a portion of composted manure and primarily decompsted leaf matter, and then fed very small amounts of a variety of vegetable scraps just to add diversity.
Hi Gareth,

Many thanks for weighing into the conversation, I'm really enjoying this thread. I hope you don't mind a few questions.

Is the decomposted leaf matter you mention what the old garden books call 'leaf mould'? I assume this is just deciduous leaves kept moist and allowed to decompose slowly that generate a mass of fungal hyphae through them?

In my worm farm (one of those green rectangular two tray systems) the bottom tray is always pretty wet. To harvest the worm castings, do I simply dry this out before sieving out any material that hasn't fully broken down?

Lastly, how long would I leave a tray from set up to harvest? Just putting vegetable scraps into the tray takes quite a long time to fill it but I can see that putting a thick bed of composted material and then supplemental feeding might shorten this process.
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Re: Mirai Podcast Worm Castings

Post by GBarb »

terryb wrote: August 30th, 2020, 9:08 am
GBarb wrote: August 29th, 2020, 8:03 pm In the end, it’s all about the quality of ingredients you put in. Ideally, what I would see as being a great all round casting is a bedding material made of a portion of composted manure and primarily decompsted leaf matter, and then fed very small amounts of a variety of vegetable scraps just to add diversity.
Hi Gareth,

Many thanks for weighing into the conversation, I'm really enjoying this thread. I hope you don't mind a few questions.

Is the decomposted leaf matter you mention what the old garden books call 'leaf mould'? I assume this is just deciduous leaves kept moist and allowed to decompose slowly that generate a mass of fungal hyphae through them?

In my worm farm (one of those green rectangular two tray systems) the bottom tray is always pretty wet. To harvest the worm castings, do I simply dry this out before sieving out any material that hasn't fully broken down?

Lastly, how long would I leave a tray from set up to harvest? Just putting vegetable scraps into the tray takes quite a long time to fill it but I can see that putting a thick bed of composted material and then supplemental feeding might shorten this process.
Hi there bud,

Yes that’s correct leaf mould, etc. you could also compost wood shavings, heavily carbon materials (dried straw etc)

Sugars cane mulch is awesome for fungal growth, I’m going to start using this as the top dressing in my work
Farm.

My thoughts here are to make a bacterial ot
Dominated compost (more nitrogen) and a fungal dominated compost (more carbon) and feed this to the worm farm, feeding more of fungal compost than the bacterial compost.

This will break down faster in the worm farm and the worms will “chew” through it much faster.

Concerning sifting, yeah you want to leave it until it dries out a bit before you do that, most of the worms will migrate up to the next tray when you start feeding it, and you can simply check the bottom tray for numbers of worms and when you are seeing none or just a few, take that tray out and harvest it. Then wait for it to dry and sift.

Time frame varies, but using pre composted material as discussed above will accelerate it dramatically.
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Re: Mirai Podcast Worm Castings

Post by treeman »

GBarb post_id=282056 time=1598674104 user_id=12395]





As mentioned in the podcast, things added In commercial preparations do offer an innoculant, but this community changes over time.

The idea is that microbially lacking soils (especially inorganic ones) can and do benefit from an injection of bacteria or fungi (either by microbially active compost or commercial preparations) to kickstart a community.


Yes in theory, in a sterile test tube this might be so. In practice it's complete nonsense. The beneficial microbes we are talking about live on the roots of plants and feed on the exudations from the roots. There they offer the plant protection from attack from pathogens. Other kinds of bacteria and fungi are involved in breaking down organic matter into simple minerals which can be used by the plant. The advantage of having them there is that besides mineralizing organic matter they also out-compete pathogens and using them as a food source.
No soils and no materials are lacking in microbes. They are everywhere including on your keyboard and on the screen you are looking at. All they require is a food source, (there's your blood and bone) water and heat to multiply at breakneck speed. The notion that they must be added to soil-less media to ''kick start'' the process is bunk. Microbes are ALMOST NEVER added to compost heaps. If they are the composter has been had. They are already there waiting for the right conditions to get going. Thermophilic, mesophilic and every other kind. Millions upon millions of supremely healthy plants are raised hydroponically every day and microbes and never added to the media which is usually practically sterile but if you examined the root systems of these plants you would find a thriving community of microbes in the rhizosphere.

Quote....''Studies that look at the microbiology in hydroponics systems find about 10,000,000 bacteria per milliliter of nutrient solution (1, 29).
Quote....''These systems are also rich in fungi– a study that looked at both fungi and bacteria in hydroponic systems found 1,000,000 cfu/ml bacteria and 10 to 1000 fungi cfu/ml in the system (29).''
In some cases, the community may not have diversity or be lacking in any substantial numbers although they.
In almost no cases.
The blood and bon analogy, this is a food, you need microbes to break it down for it to be available to the plant, by innoculating with outside sources, you introduce these and allow further development of the microbial community by making a more hospitable environment for other microbes
.

No. You could add an organic fertilizer to completely sterile media and it would start to decompose within hours.(given moisture) As I said the bacteria are already everywhere. In this case they would be on your fingers, in the blood and bone and in the air around it.


I don’t think you can simply write these approaches, products or processes off in all circumstances, as it simply isn’t the case.


Yes it is the case. If you want to waste your time and money on adding bacteria in the hope that you will have healthier plants and/or soil environment, go ahead. I'm simply saying to you that you no not need to do it.
Mike
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Re: Mirai Podcast Worm Castings

Post by GBarb »

Okey dokey.
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Re: Mirai Podcast Worm Castings

Post by GBarb »

Hey there guys,

I thought I would share some pictures of my latest report.

This is a lemon lime and clippers privet. It ended up splitting into 3 seperate trees, my goal was two, so this was a surprise but I welcome one.

You can see the ramification of the roots (this was through the entire root ball) and the stratification of the worm castings (black material) that worked its way to the top half of the grow box.

The dense matt of fine surface roots is something I’m seeing in the majority of my pots.

You’ll also see pictures of roots penetrating the worm cast (in reality this is vermicast, somewhat unfinished worm castings, but an awesome particle size and very very stable form of humus).
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Re: Mirai Podcast Worm Castings

Post by GBarb »

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Re: Mirai Podcast Worm Castings

Post by greg27 »

Gotta be happy with those results. Worm farm added to my xmas wish list :tu:
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Re: Mirai Podcast Worm Castings

Post by jehsiboi »

GBarb wrote: September 9th, 2020, 3:06 pm Hey there guys,

I thought I would share some pictures of my latest report.

This is a lemon lime and clippers privet. It ended up splitting into 3 seperate trees, my goal was two, so this was a surprise but I welcome one.

You can see the ramification of the roots (this was through the entire root ball) and the stratification of the worm castings (black material) that worked its way to the top half of the grow box.

The dense matt of fine surface roots is something I’m seeing in the majority of my pots.

You’ll also see pictures of roots penetrating the worm cast (in reality this is vermicast, somewhat unfinished worm castings, but an awesome particle size and very very stable form of humus).
Very nice looking roots. Thanks for sharing the photos. The castings look very stable. How many years have they been in that pot. This looks all very promising I've built a three tier worm farm and commandeered some worms so I'm pretty excited to get some castings similar to yours.

Jesse
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Re: Mirai Podcast Worm Castings

Post by GBarb »

They would be over 6 years old.

Likely the original nutritional value is gone, but the water holding ability, CEC and aggregate properties are remaining.

There are two “types” or forms of castings in these pots.

The first is the finely sieved casting, a small tubular casting the size of the top of a ball point pen.

The second is vermicast, a much larger aggregate, perhaps 3-7mm is size, sometimes larger, that stays as an aggregate, or breaks up and reforms with other humus, that the roots penetrate.

Acting like Akadama.

I’m going to bake some and see what they turn out like.

But in reality, the results speak for themselves.

The quality of this root system is very satisfying.
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