BRANDON, Man. (Staff) – Farmers at a workshop here recently learned about a plow that isn’t pulled by a tractor. It’s only eight to 20 centimetres long and wriggles around on its own horsepower.
Make that worm power.
A soil scientist from Indiana’s Purdue University said earthworms and nightcrawlers often thrive in no-till fields because crop residue provides protection, moisture and plenty to munch on.
In return, Eileen Kladivko said worms help improve soil structure by:
- Incorporating organic materials.
- Creating air holes.
- Digging tunnels for water, meaning spring runoff is channeled to where it’s needed.
- Leaving casts or excrement that are high in nutrients at the top of its burrow and along the walls.
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“If a root is lucky enough to happen to hit upon one of those nightcrawler channels, it’s got a great place to grow,” Kladivko said.
Hard workers
Earthworms are wandering soil workers, burrowing around in the top 30 centimetres of soil. Nightcrawlers, on the other hand, will tunnel straight down for about 1.5 metres, and speedily slither in the same tunnel for most of their lives.
Kladivko said nightcrawlers will go to the mouth of the tunnel at night to pull crop residues in. These form small plugs or middens, which is how farmers can tell if they have nightcrawlers in a field.
Worms do not survive well in conventionally tilled land because the soil is drier and has less food. However, Kladivko said earthworms will return to the soil once it is no longer tilled, especially if manure is used for fertilizer.
Nightcrawlers are a different story.”If we’ve been clean-tilling for many years, we may have no nightcrawlers at all in the field.”
She has been experimenting with seeding nightcrawlers.
In April, she bought freshly picked worms and planted them in a field covered with soybean residue. She marked where she planted them, and wants to see if they will survive and multiply.
Kladivko said if farmers want to try to plant nightcrawlers, they should, but on a small scale since they are expensive.
“I don’t know whether they’ll survive on all soils,” she said, adding that good soil may not benefit from worms, but poor soil likely would.
