September 2012
Springtail Experiment-9-10-12
I figured I’d better get something posted today before you guys start sending out search parties (lol)! It’s rather fitting that I’m posting something from a series that’s been MIA for months now, don’t ya think?!
Anywho…
It’s true, I haven’t been writing anything about my little springtail experiment – but that’s not to say that I’ve been completely ignoring the bins since my last update (in May – yikes!). I’ve added food materials every so often and have, just generally, been peeking in to see what’s happening. I haven’t observed anything too exciting (you’d definitely know it if I did) – but the key is that the experiment is still alive and well, and I’m finally planning to do a little more with it.
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Cocoon Production & Bin Size
Interesting question from David:
I’ve tried to search to see if it’s better to have a larger or smaller
bin for increasing the amount of worm cocoons. Sometimes people say a
larger bin will make the worms think there’s more room to expand to,
but others say a smaller bin helps because they can find each other
easier. Do you know which is more accurate?
Hi David,
I would never claim to have a definitive answer to this question (or many others in the realm of vermicomposting, for that matter! lol) but I can certainly share my thoughts on the matter. For starters, it’s important to remember that there are MANY factors that can influence cocoon production – size of the available habitat being just one of them. In other words, we should never assume that the worms will always produce more/fewer cocoons simply based on the size of system they are in.
If we were to consider a fairly “typical” set of conditions (whatever that means – lol), I might lean more towards the “more space leads to more cocoons” school of thought, but let’s spend some time looking at it from both angles.
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