Comments on: I’ve Got White Worms!

By: Shelly

Shelly — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:06:11 +0000

I have a worm bin filled with white pot worms, I just checked the PH and it is 8. I am confused, should I raise or lower this number and what should I add? I actually have two bins, my second has no white worms but also has a ph of 8 and the worms are trying to escape. thoughts? suggestions?

By: yoder

yoder — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 19:26:19 +0000

those bugs will just come right back if your soil conditions are favorable

more effective would be to nurture your soil towards being a favorable environment for beneficial/predatory bugs

let them do the work

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 19:11:16 +0000

@Flavia,

Have you tried cooking the worm wind/castings? 30 minutes in a hot oven ought to kill any plant-eating bugs.

By: yoder

yoder — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 20:42:29 +0000

cool.
correction: you want to _raise_ the pH. wood ash is alkaline. pH will go up, which will favor red worms.
luck!

By: Flavia

Flavia — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 21:15:28 +0000

Thanks for the extra advice, I’ll check my wood ash mixture with my fresh water aquarium pH test kit. I would think a level of 8-9 would be adequate to start lowering the pH in my bin, as I don’t want to shock the system, but gradually lower the pH to favor the red worms.

Fish excrete a mucous (slime layer) from their skin’s mucous membranes and my best guess is it’s the nutrients in the castings that help promote healthy bacteria in the aquarium environment that benefit the fish’s overall health.

By: yoder

yoder — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:54:07 +0000

yes, bentley is right — wood ash is POWERFUL stuff. Maybe get some pH drops (a bottle costs only several bucks) and make sure your pH isn’t above 8.

Wild guess, you won’t need more than a teaspoon or so in a gallon of water.

oh yea…
“White Worms are actually a very popular fish food among aquarium hobbyists.”
i wanted to say that i recently visited an aquaponics (fish are fed fish food, and their poop feeds food crops) company, and they had their own on-site vermicomposting system (about ten 3′x3′x3′ boxes). The guy said they actually add a bunch of the castings to the fish tanks, because it really helps their SLIME LAYER be thicker, which is an excellent sign of health. I thought that was really cool. I wonder if it’s the nutrients in the castings that are helping the fish, or the worm slime itself that’s just sticking to them. maybe both…

By: Flavia

Flavia — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 19:57:05 +0000

Yeah, when I was feeding my plants the liquid worm casting juice (I have a special bin that collects the liquid) I was diluting it with water based on the directions given. The first year it worked great. The second year was the problem associated with the “white-worm” infestation, and all of my pots/veg beds planted with worm casting compost and watered with the “worm-wine” showed unhealthy plants with “tons” of white-worms in the soil and concentrated around the root balls of the plants.

Note that the worm casting compost and the “worm-wine” didn’t appear to have live worms in it all the time of use, which leads me the the conclusion that they just hatched from eggs in the castings materials.

I will give the wood ash suggestion a try, as I have plenty of ash from using a wood-stove almost daily during the winter months.

By: Bentley

Bentley — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:53:35 +0000

Hi Yoder,
Like any common worm bin organism, white worms can certainly do better than Red Worms – but in my opinion it not so much that they outcompete them, but rather that they are taking advantage of conditions that are better suited for them then the Reds.
I’ve never really tried to optimize for white worms so I’m not sure how effective they are on their own as composters – would be interesting to test out though.
I’d be surprised if there were white worms (aka “pot worms”) that harmed plants. Nematodes for sure, but they are typically too small to be seen with the unaided eye.
Careful with the wood ash and water – that’s how they used to make (caustic) lye for soap.

By: yoder

yoder — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:09:34 +0000

i’m wondering if there’s two different types of “white worm” that people are talking about. Could the one that normally consumes dead matter somehow also have a taste for live plants? Maybe when they run out of their preferred food sources…?
I’ve been curious about these white ones, wanting to introduce them to my place, but i’ve heard mixed stuff about them, like that they can out-compete the red worms. the pH thing’s a good one to know… anyone tried adding a tiny bit of wood ash to some water and seeing how that pH increase affected their infestation??

sounds like they’d be useful for taking care of acidic stuff that the red worms don’t care for. starches, dairy, citrus?

By: margaret gauvin

margaret gauvin — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:03:07 +0000

yes we had a lovely lawn a year a go and now we have a dead lawn
we were told it was the white werm in the earth what do we do for it