In Their Own Words

In
Their
Own
Words
Interviews With
Vermiculture Experts
Edited by
Peter Bogdanov
Copyright © 2000 by Peter Bogdanov
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or by any information and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Published by:
Petros Publishing Co.
Merlin, Oregon 97532
The publisher does not assume and hereby disclaims any
liability to any party for any loss or damage caused by
errors or omissions in In Their Own Words whether such
errors or omission result from negligence, accident or any
other cause.
Printed in the United States of America
Library in Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
In their own words : interviews with vermiculture experts/ edited by Peter
Bogdanov.
p.cm.
ISBN 0-9657039-1-6
1.
Vermiculturists—Interviews. 2. Earthworm culture. 3.
Vermicomposting. 4. Earthworm culture—United States. 5.
Vermicomposting—United States. I.Bogdanov, Peter, 1951SF597.E3 15 2000
639’.75—dc21
00-065247
In Their
Own
Words
Interviews With
Vermiculture Experts
Edited by
Peter Bogdanov
Petros Publishing Company
Merlin, Oregon U.S.A.
Table of Contents
Introduction: What Do We Learn from Interviews?
Chapter 1: Mary Appelhof
Flowerfield Enterprises
7
Chapter 2: Jack Chambers
Sonoma Valley Worm Farm
15
Chapter 3: Barry Meijer
Pacific Southwest Farms
23
Chapter 4: Jim Jensen
Yelm Earthworm and Castings Farm
33
Chapter 5: Al Eggen
Original Vermitech Systems, Ltd.
42
Chapter 6: Larry Martin
Vermitechnology Unlimited, Inc.
52
Chapter 7: Al Cardoza
Rainbow Worm Farm
67
Chapter 8: Ed Berry
U.S. Department of Agriculture
79
Chapter 9: Mario Travalini
American Resource Recovery
90
Chapter 10: Dr. Clive Edwards
Ohio State University
102
Chapter 11: Dr. Scott Subler
Pacific Garden Company
129
Chapter 12: Bruce R. Eastman
Orange County Florida Environmental Protection
161
Introduction: What Do We Learn
From Interviews?
U
nderstanding how we learn and how information may
be transferred are subjects of perennial discussion.
We seek and obtain information visually and audibly
as well as experientially. In the quest to promote greater
understanding of vermiculture, our company has published
straightforward written information (in the form of books, a
manual and newsletters) and produced videocassettes. But we
have found that the interview format provides a different
approach to picking up information.
Our culture is actually quite absorbed with interviews. It
seems we all yearn to discover more about personalities in the
news. Television leads the way. Early morning network
news/talk programs feature guests who are interviewed by TV
show hosts. Afternoon talk shows and late night talk shows
are emceed by some of the best-paid and most famous
television personalities in the US. Some, such as Rosie and
Oprah are known merely by their first names. And their
format? The interview. From a Barbara Walters Special, to a
Mike Wallace interview on 60 Minutes, producers and
advertisers know that a significant percentage of the Nielson
audience will tune in and watch. There’s just something
about a one-on-one interview that will seize a viewer’s
attention and hold him or her captive. Whether this curiosity
comes from the cult of hero worship or attraction to tabloid
gossip, there is something that draws us to know more about
our own kind.
Our fascination with the interview stems from wanting to
know more than merely what an author or narrator might
In Their Own Words
choose to say about a given subject. The interview can be
more spontaneous, more informal and perhaps more revealing
than reading an author’s carefully chosen words. While the
interviews presented here, quizzing experts in the area of
vermiculture, are not so self-revealing that one might learn
intimate personal details, there is ample opportunity here to
read between the lines and examine motivations that may not
be revealed elsewhere. The human side, or better, more of our
humanness is allowed to come across through the medium of
an interview than other means of written expression.
Another benefit to this format is that an interviewer may ask
the same sort of question that someone else has longed to ask.
Or, the interviewer may ask a question that the interviewee
has not considered or developed or commented upon
previously. In short, the interviewer introduces the subject
material rather than the person being interviewed. Again, this
difference in format may bring to life what an author or expert
might not have been able to express elsewhere.
The subjects interviewed here consist of experienced worm
workers representing a variety of special interests. Worldrenowned researchers such as Dr. Clive Edwards and Dr.
Scott Subler have published their findings in scholarly
journals, as has Dr. Edward Berry who worked for over 30
years with the USDA. These researchers have spoken to
groups all over the world and have committed their lives’
work to the exciting frontier of soil ecology. Operators of
worm farms such as Al Cardoza (Rainbow Worm Farm), Jack
Chambers (Sonoma Valley Worm Farm), and Jim Jensen
(Yelm Earthworm & Castings Farm) bring a perspective that
comes from being a sole proprietor. Their small businesses
provide excellent models for future entrepreneurs. Two of the
largest vermicomposting operations in North America, Pacific
Southwest Farms and American Resource Recovery, are
4
Introduction
represented here by Barry Meijer and Mario Travalini,
individuals whose facilities process tons of organic residues
with acres of earthworms in arid California climates. Here we
learn more about the opportunities and pitfalls of large-scale
vermicomposting with a waste management focus. The
incentive of collecting a tip fee (or gate fee) for processing
waste in a capital-intensive operation provides new challenges
and potentially greater rewards.
Al Eggen’s Original Vermitech Systems have been installed
in over a dozen institutional facilities and Larry Martin of
Vermitechnology Unlimited has consulted on a wide variety
of projects in the US and abroad. Bruce Eastman, a Floridabased environmental regulator is leading the way in
demonstrating that earthworms can transform potentially
harmful biosolids (wastewater residuals) into a pathogen-free
product that has useful properties as a soil amendment. And
others, such as author/educator Mary Appelhof, contribute
still another perspective about the value of including
earthworms in educational programs geared for people of all
ages.
These interviews first appeared in Casting Call, a bi-monthly
newsletter published by VermiCo that features reports on
vermiculture, composting, soil fertility and issues concerning
organic residues. Interviews published here were conducted
over a three-year period, from February 1997 to February
2000.
If there is a Vermiculture Industry, it is made up of the
individuals interviewed here and others like them. It includes
people who make their living through some kind of
association with earthworms that now has a soil ecology and
environmental focus more than the worms-as-fishing-bait
emphasis of years ago. Strangely, however, even though
5
In Their Own Words
words such as industry and association are used here, there is,
as of this date, no American organization for those involved in
vermiculture or vermicomposting. Yet, even without a
uniform or cohesive mission, the individuals you will hear
from in the following pages seem to share a similar
worldview, at least about earthworms. If nothing more, they
would at least agree with Charles Darwin’s famous words:
It may be doubted whether
there are many other animals
which have played so important
a part in the history of the
world as have these
lowly organized creatures.
The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through
the Action of Worms. 1881
6
Chapter One
Mary Appelhof
Flowerfield Enterprises
Mary Appelhof is popularly known as “The
Worm Woman” from Kalamazoo, Michigan.
In 1981 she compiled the Proceedings from
the Workshop on the Role of Earthworms in
the Stabilization of Organic Residues, from a
conference she helped organize at Western
Michigan University. This precedent-setting event featured
academic scientists who met with entrepreneurs in
vermiculture as well as members of the public sector. Her
1982 publication, Worms Eat My Garbage, explained home
vermicomposting as a means of reducing kitchen waste while
producing a valuable soil amendment for houseplants and
gardens. Newsweek magazine (“Kitchen Help: Wrigglers
Under the Sink,” Feb 12, 1996), gave national attention to
Mary and her book sales. In 1993 she published Worms Eat
Our Garbage: Classroom Activities for a Better Environment,
a curriculum guide and activities book for educators coauthored by Appelhof. In 1995 she released Wormania! a 26minute video featuring “Worm Woman” Mary along with
songwriter/entertainer Billy Brennan and his kids who
explored the world of worms. This production features a
number of songs as well as close-up footage of worms at
work, including a worm hatching from its cocoon. As
president of Flowerfield Enterprises, Mary markets
educational materials, “Worm-a-way” worm bins, earthworms
and a variety of vermicomposting incentive items. Mary is a
frequent contributor to Worm Digest, typically reporting about
7
In Their Own Words
her visits to vermicomposting sites abroad, such as Australia,
New Zealand and Belarus. She has been a featured speaker at
conferences around the US and throughout the world. In
September 2000, Mary organized The Vermillennium, a weeklong conference of scientists and worm workers in
Kalamazoo, commemorating the 20th anniversary of her 1980
Workshop. She holds master’s degrees in education and
biological sciences and is also known to be a skilled
photographer. This interview appeared in the February 1997
issue of Casting Call newsletter.
Casting Call: Let’s talk first about the success of your
books and educational materials. Can you tell us something
about their reception worldwide?
Mary Appelhof: I’m not sure when, but fairly soon on we
had books [Worms Eat My Garbage] in each of the 50 states.
My guess is that there are at least 50 or 60 countries that have
a least one copy of my book. We seem to get more people
from different countries that are corresponding with us such
as a recent letter from Lima, Peru. Just yesterday I heard from
a woman in China whose work is in family planning. She
uses worms for medical purposes as an agglutinating agent for
sperm with is used as a contraceptive. Also, I’ve just gotten a
letter from Russia. People are inquiring about translating the
book. In fact, the book as been translated into Russian. But I
don’t know what the current status is of that.
CC: Several notable vermiculturists have credited you with
being a pioneer in the field. How does the “worm climate”
today differ from the days in which you were first starting
out?
MA: When I first started out 25 years ago, people would cut
me off after 4 or 5 minutes. They’d laugh at me. They’d say
8
Mary Appelhof
“You’re out of your mind, you’re never going to get people to
do this. Worms? In your house? You’re weird, Appelhof!”
[Laughter] And now, I give three and four hour seminars and
readily talk on the phone to people with them paying the bill
for a half hour or 45 minutes (if you can get me on the phone).
The fact that there are nearly 100,000 copies of Worms Eat
My Garbage out there is to me an incredible thing. The
interest now is just growing—more and more people are
doing it. It’s definitely changed, not only in my life, but now
there are large-scale projects. I used to think in terms of tons
of worms—once I know that a pound of worms could eat
about a pound of garbage a day—I envisioned tons of worms
eating tons of garbage. I envisioned large-scale projects and
literally thought of huge piles of stuff and huge masses of
worms. But I didn’t have the wherewithal to make that all
happen. At the time that I started I don’t believe there was an
industry. I believe there is a developing industry now. The
thing that I’m grateful for, what I’m seeing is that there is a
fairly good nucleus of reputable, credible people who are in
the industry. And I couldn’t have said that in the mid ‘70s
when there was very little credible stuff going. Now in the
late ‘90s I feel we’re on the verge of developing this potential
for large-scale vermicomposting.
CC: As an educator and publisher of educational materials,
your work has influenced thousands of teachers and children.
What has motivated you to focus upon reaching school-age
children?
MA: Well, for one thing, remember that I come from an
education background. I am in education. I was teaching
high school biology for a number of years. When I write I
believe that the function of communication is to
communicate. In other words, I’ve never been comfortable
with the academic type of jargon, where you just use big
9
In Their Own Words
words and complex sentences and obfuscate information. I
wrote my book in a way that I could communicate with
people. I wrote it with simple sentences and anecdotes and
stories and illustrations and tried to get technical information
across to people in a way that they could understand it. I
didn’t intentionally go after school-age audiences, but because
my book was so accessible to people, I would have many
teachers who were calling me up saying, “This would be great
to have in the classroom. Can you give us some more ideas
on what we can do with worms in the classroom?” It wasn’t
really an intentional decision or focus or steering. It was a
response to a need that I saw was out there. So I realized that
as an educator and as a person who can interact with the
scientists, I can take technical information and put it into more
understandable terms for teachers or for kids. That’s a gift
that I have. Publishing, writing, and speaking are tools I use
as well as the visual arts found in the video Wormania!
CC: Take us on a brief, whirlwind tour of where you have
been and what has impressed you most through your travels.
MA: I coordinated the conference in Kalamazoo [1980] and
what we were trying to do was to get the worm growers to
talk to the scientists at that conference. Since then there have
been a number of international conferences and I have been
very privileged to participate in several of these. The first one
was a Darwin Centenary, celebrating the 100th anniversary of
the publication of Darwin’s The Formation of Vegetable
Mould Through the Action of Worms, and that was in
Cumbria, England. At Kalamazoo I was able to meet
scientists and establish relationships in the scientific
community and now I see them on a regular basis going to
these international worm conferences. There was another
international conference in Avignon, France. This past
summer I went to Ireland. I went to the Philippines in1983.
10
Mary Appelhof
At that time there was considerable interest in worms. But I
have no idea what’s happening there today. In the U.S. I’ve
been out to the Pacific Northwest and done some work in
New York. But travel is very demanding. What I’m viewing
more as my role in what I need to be doing is that I need to
limit my travel to 2 or 3 times out in the course of a year and
produce these materials so that other people can make use of
them.
CC: You must have several “irons in the fire.” Can you tell
us about any upcoming projects?
MA: The biggest one right now is doing a revision of Worms
Eat My Garbage. I’m wanting to update it and so I’m
including information about plastic worms bins. I’ll have
more on different worm species, so there are some things I
definitely need to address in this revised edition. Hopefully it
will be available this spring. It won’t be a greatly expanded
version, but there are some areas that have grown. At the time
that I was starting there was not such thing as a plastic worm
bin. So I’ll be addressing that as well as some other things.
CC: Your understanding of the role of earthworms in waste
management goes back some 25 years. Clearly, much as
happened over this time period. How do you assess the
current state-of-affairs in this area? Do you foresee largescale vermi-conversion sites processing organic waste to be a
growth industry or could it just be a temporary phenomenon?
MA: No, I don’t see it as temporary. There are large-scale
sites that are going and they’re processing large amounts of
material. They’re producing an end product which has value,
and it seems to have enough value that it’s paying for some of
the infrastructure to get there. With the number of states that
are mandating that organic waste be kept out of landfills,
11
In Their Own Words
vermicomposting is going to be a part of the composting mix.
I think in most cases the majority of the materials will be
processed by larger-scale composting projects. But I think
that vermicomposting has its place and I think it’s going to
have a bigger and bigger place than it is now. There are some
fine people working out there. They are making real
contributions.
CC: You have an abiding interest in soil fertility due to the
association of vermicompost and the activity of earthworkertype worms with horticulture. What data, wither anecdotal or
scientific, do you have in support of organic practices in
agriculture/horticulture versus the prevailing dependence
upon synthetic fertilizers?
MA: When I talk to people about worms, it’s important for
me to try to get across that there are earthworkers and there
are composters—that there is more than one type of worm.
You’ve got to use the right kind of worm to perform certain
functions. For years I’ve tried to discourage people from
buying a pound of worms to put into their garden. The other
side of the coin is, although we’re sympathetic with their
wanting to save money on buying worms—“Can’t I just go
out and dig ‘em?”—the worms they dig from the garden are
not the kind they can use in a worm bin. I’ve become more
knowledgeable out worms and soil fertility through my
association with John Buckerfield in Australia who has been
working with CSIRO on earthworms and soil fertility. I’m
very interested in [Uday] Bhawalkar’s work. His idea of
taking organic waste and putting it directly on the soil. His
worms, Pheretima elongata, work as bio-managers. I want to
find out more about that, about the role of worms working in
the root zone, encouraging the growth of bacteria that are
more favorable for that plant to grow. The influence of rock
dust, containing many, many trace elements, which may have
12
Mary Appelhof
been removed through our contemporary agricultural
practices. These are very exciting concepts, and I’d like to
see more work done that can be scientifically validated along
these lines. I’m very much interested in this movement call
“Remineralize the Earth,” using rock dust.
CC: There has been some concern expressed by those inside
our industry as well as outside, that there might be a handful
of folks engaging in questionable, if not dishonest business
practices in selling worms and making misrepresentations.
Please comment on your perception of this. Is it a significant
enough problem that must be remedied soon?
MA: One problem starts with the idea that the average
number of worms hatching out of a cocoon could be two to
twenty. I’ve read enough scientific papers now that I don’t
believe there’s ever been a cocoon that’s had 20 worms hatch
out of it. Normally, the average seems to be 2.7 to 3. If one
assumes you have 10 worms hatch out of a cocoon, and builds
projections based on that, it leads to an erroneous conclusion
because the initial assumption is wrong. And so I have a
quarrel with that. But what nobody every mentions is that if
you are going to have say, 128 beds that are 3’x8’, nobody
spells out that you also have to have a back that can handle
the material for sorting through the processing through that
material. That is just glossed over. It’s misleading just by
the very serious omissions. I believe greed must be there. So,
what-----‘s promotions stuff does is to key into people who
are also greedy. I’m glad there are reputable people out there.
There’s another thing I don’t like, this tendency to come up
with your own trademarked name for a worm. To me, that
just grates against me. How can we know what we’re talking
about if we’re not talking about the same thing? I also don’t
give the hybrid any degree of credibility in the worm
business. The species are genetically isolated. Hybrid is a
13
In Their Own Words
tern in popular literature, but there certainly aren’t any that
exist as far as I’m concerned. When people think that they
can’t get a certain kind of worm from someone else, it can
lead to an inflated price.
CC: What do you hope to see happen by the end of this
century and into the next millennium?
MA: More worms processing more garbage, both at an
individual level and at a larger scale. We also need definition
of a scale. What is large, scale, mid-scale, small scale and
micro scale in vermicomposting? I suggested to Dr. Clive
Edwards for the forthcoming project on worms to be
published by BioCycle that someone work on defining these
terms.
14
Chapter Two
Jack Chambers
Sonoma Valley Worm Farm
Jack Chambers, a commercial airline pilot,
received national attention with the
publication of the article, "The Business of
Vermicomposting," in the September 1996
issue of BioCycle, The Journal of Composting
and Recycling. In 1992 he purchased a fiveacre farm from Earl Schmidt who had taken over a chicken
farm and began using chicken manure to grow worms.
Chambers bought the property and expanded the operation by
adding more windrows, obtaining dairy manure, hiring an
employee, installing an irrigation system, and purchasing
equipment such as a tractor and worm harvester. Both worms
and vermicompost are sold at retail and wholesale prices.
Vermicompost is sold at $40 per cubic yard (retail) and $30
wholesale. A five-gallon bucket of screened material is sold
for $5.00. Worms are most commonly sold in 1, 2, 5 and 10
pound increments, but larger amounts have been sold to bait
dealers. Chambers has experimented with feedstocks such as
alfalfa and has discovered variations in worm activity
according to the amount of moisture applied to the worm
beds. A few months before this interview, robins had been
removing earthworms from some of the windrows that left
Chambers searching for a solution to remedy the theft
problem. To facilitate harvesting, Chambers covers a threefoot section on one end of a windrow with sheet metal
(thereby withholding food and water) which encourages
worms to move laterally in search of feedstock. The cover is
15
In Their Own Words
removed several days later to harvest the vermicompost.
This interview was published in the April 1997 issue of
Casting Call newsletter.
Casting Call: When you purchased the property on which
you now have your vermiculture operation, it had been
converted from a poultry operation to a worm-growing
facility. What attracted you to this site and to vermiculture?
Jack Chambers: There was a combination of factors which
led us here. The principal reason was to grow worms but we
wanted some land and my wife is an artist so there is a place
here she uses as a studio. Just coming out here and learning
from Earl was a big incentive. I had read an article in the
January 1992 issue of Organic Gardening in which Mary
Appelhof had done an article on a worm bin. That really
intrigued me. Then in the summer of '92 I came out here and
bought some worms and put them in the compost pile at my
other house. I began to like what I was seeing, both in the
compost pile and with what Earl was doing here.
CC: Earl served as a kind of "mentor" for you initially. How
have you retained or modified his instruction? Who else has
been instrumental in your development?
JC: We still do things pretty much the way he had done it.
We put in a little more sophisticated drip irrigation system
that is on a timer and watered the beds a little more evenly.
We still harvest the beds the way he used to and we're on a
six-week rotation like he used. Whenever I get an idea I'll run
it by him because he's been involved his entire life with
worms and he's a wonderful observer. He always has good
input on what we can do. As far as others who have been
influential, I went back to the ISEE 5 [International
Symposium on Earthworm Ecology] the World Worm
16
Jack Chambers
Conference in Ohio in 1994. I met Clive Edwards and bought
some of his material. And then I talked to Mary Appelhof and
began reading as much as I could. But just being here and
doing it--you can see what works and what doesn't work. It's
kind of a combination of actual experience, talking to people
(with Earl especially), and then reading about what other
people are doing.
CC: You've had some success with municipal sales through
distribution of worm bins and coupons or certificates that
could be redeemed to purchase worms from you. What effect
has that had on your business?
JC: It's had a really good effect. We don't sell that much in
the way of worm bins. We have a nice recycled wood bin that
we get from the Master Gardeners. But the certificate
program has been probably one of the biggest successes we've
come up with. My wife actually came up with the idea. We
make a certificate available to an organization like S.L.U.G.
(the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners). The City of
San Jose was one we did last year and sold about 2,000
pounds of worms--almost half of the amount of worms we
sold for the entire year. Most of it was one and two-pound
orders, but the city itself bought about 400 pounds which they
had us distribute. After these worms were given out, people
could get a coupon with a worm bin. When the people were
ready to order worms, they would send us the coupon--which
gave them 10% off--and their check, and we'd ship them their
worms. The nice thing for the city was that they didn't have to
be involved in the worm distribution. It was a win-win
situation all around--the city was happy, the consumers got a
discount, and it was a good program for us. The distributor of
the worm bins continues to refer people to us and city
residents who bought worms have told their friends. It's still a
little early for repeat business. Sometimes people want to get
17
In Their Own Words
their worm bins going a little faster and will buy another
pound, but it's still early in the cycle.
CC: Your region and climate are well known for the prolific
viticulture industry in Sonoma and Napa counties. And you
have arranged your worm beds so that some are covered while
other windrows are fully exposed. How do the two systems
differ?
JC:
The big
difference is that
the covered beds do
better in the winter
and
summer
months.
In the
spring and the fall,
like right now for
example, before it
gets too hot, we're
doing more with the
outside beds. As far as feeding goes, we feed the exposed
beds heavily with alfalfa in the winter. This helps shed the
water because it forms a kind of crust, and it's also a good
nitrogen source for the worms (but the alfalfa makes
harvesting more difficult later on; it clogs the worm
harvester.) But the alfalfa is almost all gone now. Now we're
applying manure. As for the covered beds, we stay pretty
much just with manure. This was the first year we were able
to stay in business year-round. We had a voucher program
with the schools of Alameda County which pretty much kept
us going in January and February. Usually there's a pretty
distinct bell-curve over the year. This winter was unusual
(because it was busy). The phone starts ringing in late March
and fairly steadily in April. Things really go until about the
Fourth of July when there's a little dip, then they start soaring
18
Jack Chambers
up again to the top of the bell-curve until about October, and
that's when it starts to cool down. That's seems to fit along
with the weather pattern here. People get interested in their
gardens in March and April and then putting things to bed
around Thanksgiving.
CC: Your advertising has been principally through the
yellow pages. Few, if any, competitors seem to be using this
medium, at least in your area. How has it worked for you and
what plans do you have for advertising/marketing?
JC: That's pretty much all we have done. It's worked well
for us. We have an 800 number that's in the yellow pages all
throughout the Bay Area. I know in some counties we are the
only listing under worms--right after "word processing" where
there's hundreds of listings. A number of people have told me
that the reason they called is because we have an 800 number.
The other thing we have done to expand our marketing is to
associate ourselves with the local Master Gardeners and
Master Composters. They'll help us by distributing coupons
through their classes. It gives them a source they can send
people to that they feel good about. People have called from
all over (like Colorado and southern California) because they
haven't been able to find where to get worms.
CC: In constructing your worm beds, you begin by laying
down a layer of straw or hay, then applying cow manure as a
feedstock (to a total of about 12-18" in height). The drip
irrigation system is mounted over the rows supported by
posts. Are you content with this system? How does this
affect harvesting? Are there any modifications planned?
JC: We're pretty content with the way we do things. We
recycle everything. After harvesting, the smaller worms go
back out to the new beds as well as the larger material from
19
In Their Own Words
the screened vermicompost. The drip irrigation system works
well and we're going to install a sprinkler system as well so
the entire bed gets watered. We think we'll increase our worm
population this way. So we'll go to a hybrid system, using
both drip irrigation and sprinkler irrigation.
CC: You've used shredded paper on top of the worm beds to
increase cocoon production, particularly in spring. How did
this idea come about and what have you seen as a result?
JC: In one of the articles found in Clive Edwards'
Earthworms in Waste and Environmental Management, there
was something about paper and manure. Earl told me that he
used to shred up newspaper and then put manure on that. A
few years ago we bought 2,000 lbs. of shredded paper from a
recycling facility and then laid it on the beds. Nobody seems
to know why, but Earl's supposition is that the paper provides
a way for the worms to slip the cocoons off, providing an
edge or something hard or crusty. I used to find that there
were just tons of cocoons along the edge of some redwood
bins I had made, because the wood fibers helped them slip off
their cocoons. Unfortunately, I found that in the recycled
shredded paper we bought, there was also some shredded
microfilm from the police department. So mixed in with the
paper were all these bits of plastic film which was a big
nuisance. We've gone to alfalfa now to give us similar results
and provide extra nitrogen as well. The only down side is that
it costs us more.
CC: Tell us about the production of worms versus
vermicompost. Last year you sold about 4,000 pounds of
worms. About two years ago you sold about 200 cubic yards
of vermicompost, but only 75 yards the following year. Do
these fluctuations depend upon the market demand, or is it a
matter of your own emphasis.
20
Jack Chambers
JC: Well, the market demand is there. With the coupon
program we were just swamped. With my other job, I'm
limited at times. You want to put out the flames where the
fire is, and last year the worms were that fire, so that's what
we concentrated upon. There wasn't an easy way to sell the
castings. It wasn't convenient. This year we've made an
arrangement with someone who brings us a 15-20 yard
container that we fill up every week. We're selling this in
bulk every week, perhaps 70-80 yards a month. We may sell
600 cubic yards of vermicompost this year.
CC:
One large
composting facility
in a nearby county
has contacted you
about purchasing
your vermicompost.
And
another
composting
operation in your
own county is
looking into doing a
joint venture with your worms and their feedstock. These
seem like two exciting developments. Do you see this kind of
thing happening with greater frequency in the future as
commercial
composting
facilities
see
value
in
vermicomposting as well?
JC: I think the future is really very good. One of the things
that I saw when I went to a composting workshop in '93 is that
the composting business can be a real "cut-throat" business.
But I see vermicomposting as a kind of "gourmet" end of the
market--a little higher priced but a better material. The people
who get into it know that they can get a better price for it than
21
In Their Own Words
for compost. There's increasing interest in organic gardening
too. We're a small to medium-size worm farm. There's room
for that and other kinds of operations. I'd like to see a worm
farm in every town. You could be a neighborhood worm
grower all the way to an international exporter.
CC: You serve as an example of an individual who may have
a chosen career, yet may opt for a wholly different pursuit
later in life (although you are still an airline pilot). What tips
or suggestions could you give to the person who is looking
into commercial vermiculture, yet has some anxiety about
how to proceed?
JC: If you could go work for somebody or [find] a mentoring
program or an intern program, or if you can't do that, just think
about starting a small worm farm in your back yard and see if
you like it. You could make a raised bed. Start out that way and
see if that's fun. Then try a couple. I guess my major
recommendation would be to start out small and see if you like it.
When you think of selling worms for $10 or $12 per pound,
that's more than steak and I think people mistakenly get the idea
that they're going to be rich. There's a lot reflected in the price-it's not inflated. It reflects the cost of what goes into it, from the
trucks to go get the manure, to a tractor to harvest, to lay the
manure down, to harvest the worms, to package them up--it's an
amazing process that requires a lot of steps. I would discourage
people from getting into it when they think they're going to get
rich quickly. People should take a longer term view. One of the
best things about this business is the people. There's just a lot of
really good people who are trying to do the right thing. They're
enjoying it and genuinely enjoyable to be around.
22
Chapter Three
Barry Meijer
Pacific Southwest Farms, Ontario, CA
Barry Meijer operates Pacific Southwest Farms (PSF), a 54-acre
vermicomposting facility in Ontario, (San Bernardino County)
California. Beginning in 1994 with earthworms transported from
the Worm Concern in Simi Valley, California, Meijer has
steadily built his site into what may be the largest operation of its
kind. Three Orange County Municipal Recovery Facilities
(MRFs), send the biodegradable fraction of collected waste
("green material" as defined by California's compost regulations)
to PSF which charges a tip fee.
Worm-stocked
windrows measuring eight feet in width by 100 feet in length are
fed at the rate of four tons of material per row per week. Situated
east of Los Angeles in an arid climate, PSF's water usage
amounts to 120,000 gallons per day. Sources for water include
23
In Their Own Words
residential sprinkler runoff and barn water from local dairies.
More than 100 tons of worms can be found in the 360 windrows.
Finished vermicompost is currently being marketed to
agricultural users. Due to the mixed quality of feedstocks which
contain a significant portion of inert material (glass, metal,
rocks, plastic, etc.), the final product must be screened to 1/8" to
remove these residuals
Meijer has been a consistent proponent of maintaining the
agricultural exemption for vermiculture under California's Food
and Agriculture Act. Over the past several months he has been
involved in defending his operation against county suits
intending to close down PSF. On November 26, 1996, the San
Bernardino County Local Enforcement Agency (LEA) issued a
Notice and Order to PSF requiring PSF to obtain a solid waste
facilities permit as a transfer/processing station. It also stated
that "any on-site processing of any green material prior to
vermiculture bed application after March 30, 1997, is strictly
forbidden and considered in violation of this order." This
effectively shut down PSF. The operation, it was told, could not
"process" any of its incoming feedstock. Processing would
include either blending with manure or pre-composting the
incoming feedstock. PSF appealed the Notice and Order. On
February 26, 1997 the San Bernardino County Independent
Hearing Panel issued a decision regarding the Notice and Order
which specified that the worm bed activity was excluded from
regulation by the CIWMB's compost regulations and that the
handling of the 1-1/4" material did not require PSF to obtain a
solid waste facilities permit. At the public hearing, San
Bernardino County stipulated that the Hearing Panel decision
was not intended to, and did not, restrict PSF's processing of the
1-1/4" material on-site, or similar material that might be brought
to the site in the future. PSF, it said, may continue to process this
material, including screening and composting, without obtaining
a transfer/processing solid waste facilities permit.
24
Barry Meijer
San Bernardino County, attempting to close down PSF because
of its location in a dairy zone, ruled that PSF may be operated
only by virtue of a conditional use permit and that it does not
possess such a permit. Pacific Southwest Farms filed an appeal
of this ruling. On April 28, 1997, in the Court of Appeal, State
of California, Fourth Appellate District, the following decision
was issued: "The court has determined that petitioner [Pacific
Southwest Farms] has shown a viable chance of prevailing on
appeal and that the balance of hardships lies in his favor. Under
Food & Agriculture Code Section 23.7, vermiculture is an
"agricultural use." Very arguably it also qualifies as an
agricultural use under the County's own ordinances, as
petitioner's establishment [PSF] is operated for the purpose of
producing an "animal product." As such, the vermiculture
operation would not need a conditional use permit but could
legally operate in the Agricultural Preserve. In this context, we
have noted with interest that County appears to concede that the
Preserve is not formally limited to dairies, and its argument that
the Preserve is de facto limited to dairies and therefore should be
legally so limited as well is not certain to prevail. Accordingly,
the petition is granted. Pending resolution of the appeal or
further order of this court, respondent [San Bernardino County]
shall not attempt to shut down the vermiculture facility...." This
interview was published in the June 1997 issue of Casting Call.
Casting Call: You're obviously very pleased with the decisions
rendered in your favor by the Appellate Court and CIWMB.
Before we discuss some of these recent rulings, let's talk a little
about PSF's operation first. Are you the only vermicomposting
facility using green material from a MRF as a feedstock?
Barry Meijer: Some of our material comes from what's called a
"dirty MRF." Originally, the MRF screened all the commingled
material it received and sent us all the fines under four inches.
25
In Their Own Words
This material is approximately 95% organic. Our problem was,
it contained a certain amount of plastic which began to blow
around once we started processing the material. We went back
to our waste haulers and asked them to please reduce the size of
the material. We found that 1-1/4" was the perfect size. It didn't
contain much plastic at all. The other product we receive is
ground paper which has come into contact with food material or
other green waste. What we feed our worms is really "green
material" as it has been defined by the CIWMB: "'Green
Material' means any plant material that is either separated at the
point of generation, or separated at a centralized facility [a MRF]
that employs methods to minimize contamination. Green
material includes, but is not limited to, manure, untreated wood
wastes, paper products, and natural fiber products. Green
material does not include treated wood waste, mixed demolition
or mixed construction debris." I am definitely the only person
using this product to feed worms. There is an agricultural
concern in Temecula that is currently plowing this material into
the ground and using it as a soil amendment, but we are the only
vermiculture site using it as feedstock.
CC: The size of your operation has grown tremendously over
the past three years. Can you tell us about the stages of its
growth--initial worm inventory, TPD [tons per day] of incoming
material, initial number of windrows, staff growth, increase of
water usage, etc? Do you have plans for expansion; obtaining
other sites?
BM: Initially, from Simi Valley we brought about eleven tons of
worms. The problem we had at first, when we signed contracts
with waste haulers, was that they were giving us more material
than we could consume. Consequently we went through a
"catch-up" phase where we were trying to breed worms as fast as
we could. We ended up with kind of a stockpile. Last July that
turned around. We really had achieved the ability to handle
26
Barry Meijer
more than we were taking in. It was extremely hard to deal with.
You can't really go and get a contract and say, "I'm only going to
take a portion of the material you're sending me." So initially we
obtained contracts and couldn't really use all that we had. But
that really turned around last year. And it was really unfortunate
that once we had turned things around, that the problems with the
county developed. So initially we were taking in about 75 tons
per day (now we're up to 100 tpd). If we were now where we
would like to be, we would be receiving about 300 tons per day.
We started with 11 rows of worms with the staff from my
landscape company spending a couple days a week out here.
Really, this facility, to handle 300 tpd., requires approximately
23 employees. Interestingly enough, we cannot use all the water
that is running down the street. It's all free water. Our biggest
expense is pumping it. Our plans for expansion include a 120acre site in Bakersfield and two other 50-acre sites.
CC: Other than the problems you've had to face with the LEA,
what kinds of operational challenges have you had to face, with
regard to incoming feedstocks and marketability of a product
with inerts?
BM: One of the major problems we initially had with our
incoming feedstocks was the problem with plastic bags. During
the afternoon winds, these would just blow all over the place.
Any kind of film plastic in the feedstocks sent from the MRF
created a problem. The MRF has recently installed a vacuum
system across the [conveyor] belts that removes the plastic a lot
better. Lower tip fees from Orange County landfills also pose a
problem. We'd like to take material from San Bernardino
County, but none of the cities around us has a clean-waste
program. There is an enormous amount of manure here. The
Chino Valley basin has approximately 300,000 tons of manure a
year that they need to dispose of. The problem is, there is no
tipping fee available. As far as dealing with the inerts in our
27
In Their Own Words
material, initially we were going to install several air knives to
clean the material and that process actually works reasonably
well. Last July and August we were going on trips looking at
people separating peanuts from the shells, and it was absolutely
fascinating to see how this was done. We felt that a system like
that would work extremely well for us. But unfortunately we got
into this situation with the county and it has put a lot of those
innovative programs on hold. In the interim here, we are
screening down to 1/8 inch. Our market will continue to be the
bulk market, but the retail market is there.
CC: How has the media treated PSF in its coverage of what
you're trying to do and the litigation prompted by the San
Bernardino LEA?
BM: We haven't really had that much media coverage. We've
had some coverage of the hearing, but none of the media has
covered the court ruling or anything like that. We've really not
pursued the media. I would really like to have peace with the
county and it has not been my intent to inflame the situation.
The waste problem in California is really limited to people that
are involved in the industry, in my opinion. The population is, as
yet, not up-in-arms about us putting our waste in a landfill. I
think [the interest] is not this generation, but the children who are
much more aware of recycling than their parents.
CC: On one visit to PSF, I saw a truckload of spent tea leaves
being brought in from a company which had used the material to
brew iced tea. Other than material delivered from the MRFs,
what kinds of feedstocks have you handled?
BM: We get tea, a couple times a week, and the worms really do
enjoy it. Unfortunately, we just don't get enough tea. We mix in
manure from the local dairies. The worms, just like any animal,
really need a mixed diet. I think where we are really lacking is in
28
Barry Meijer
knowledge of what is the optimum diet for worms. I don't think
there has been enough study of that. Obviously worms on cow
manure do well, worms on green waste do well, but somehow
what we have to be able to do is blend it. My personal worm bin,
which is a Can-O-Worms bin, is one that I just feed food waste
in, and I find the worms do extremely well on that. Especially if
you take the food waste and run it through your blender before
you put it in there.
CC: What kinds of things do you monitor in your worm beds?
Moisture? Salinity? C:N ratio? pH levels? Particle size? Worm
count? What height do the windrows achieve before they are
altered (for harvesting, splitting)?
BM: What we do every month is take samples from any castings
that will leave the door, and what we do in that casting test is test
for heavy materials and things of that sort. We check for
Salmonella and for coliform. We do the testing as if it's regular
compost. In the worm beds what we do is blend the material to a
nice texture that we like the look of, and then we feed that to the
worms. As far as salinity is concerned, we don't actually check
for that. The worm beds really tell us if they're happy or
unhappy. I had an instance where I had received some particleboard material from a speaker factory. I put it on the worm beds,
it was all very, very fine. And I thought, "Gee, the nitrogen level
has got to be high because of the glue from formaldehyde, you've
got to be able to feed this to the worms." I put it on the worm
beds and five minutes later the worms were crawling out of their
beds at noon! I immediately raked off the material and picked up
worms, watered them down, got them settled. But it really
scared the heck out of me. So those are the kinds of things you
have to watch in our feedstocks. When we are only going to split
beds we do so when they're full of worms; that's not a height
determination But in the case of where we're actually harvesting
the castings, we allow them to get about 3 feet high. The problem
29
In Their Own Words
with doing that is that we lose nitrogen content because we're
watering all the time. Our material is actually testing with about
1/2% nitrogen. I don't know if that's good or bad. I don't believe
that it's the nitrogen content that makes the worm castings as
good as they are. It is in fact, the bacteria content. NPK
measurements are the traditional ways of measuring fertilizer.
CC: What kinds of things have been triggering the attention of
CIWMB and LEAs with regard to vermicomposting activities in
California? Are there some facilities trying to avoid the
permitting requirements for handling solid waste by using the
agricultural exclusion for vermiculture as a smokescreen? Are
there some in the composting industry who might be trying to
"blow the whistle" on vermicomposting in order to subject it to
the same regulations faced by compost facilities?
BM: I'm including my own facility with this. This facility has
approximately 125,000 tons of material on site. That is an
enormous amount of material. The mass balance for this facility,
meaning the point at which the material equals the material going
in and out, and everything sort of works, is realistically at about
110,000 tons. The real heartburn that we've been causing the
CIWMB and the LEAs has been the storage of material. With
the storage of material, comes fires and vectors and all kinds of
other problems that they have serious concerns about. If one
looks at our facility, we have at any given time approximately 6
months of feedstock on site. We never turn the compost before
we feed it to the worm beds. We just let it sit and become
anaerobic. Just the fact that it's killed all the weed seeds is good
enough for me. That is really all I'm trying to accomplish. Also
the bacterial count is relatively high, so that when it goes on the
beds the worms go through it extremely rapidly. Now what has
happened is, there are facilities with very few worms beds that
have enormous piles of material, and I think that causes a real
concern. But I also want to say that I have a certain amount of
30
Barry Meijer
empathy for people in the business, because they have to initially
get started and, you know, what comes first, the chicken or the
egg? I think the big concern of the composting facilities
[wanting vermicomposting to be similarly regulated] is that they
have spent a lot of money on getting solid waste permits. In
Northern California, more than in Southern California, urban
areas are able to take most of their green waste to farmers and
have them use it as mulch without taking it to a permitted solid
waste facility for composting. There's competition for feedstocks
at a price. That's really what this is about. In my opinion the
vermiculture facility has to receive a tipping fee that is at least as
high as a regular composting facility, or you won't be able to
make money at the facility. Things will change when more and
more castings are used. In 1995, our sale of castings amounted
to about 45% of our total income.
CC: The legal battles you've been waging have been very costly
($212,000). You hope to recover most of this by virtue of
prevailing in the recent decisions. Now that you have paved the
way for vermicomposting to continue in California with minimal
hindrance, what do you see as the future of vermicomposting in
the state? How do you assess the viability of vermicomposting
in other areas of the country that may not enjoy southern
California's enviable climate?
BM: It needs to be understood that vermiculture cannot be the
end-all and the be-all to recycling. It's a small part of recycling.
The state of California is the major producer of just about every
agricultural product in the country. We cannot continue to grow
crops without some return of organic material to the soil. I feel
that compost as well as castings can meet this demand. As
farmers become more aware of the importance of the livelihood
of the soil itself, I think that there will be a greater demand for
organic products. That, coupled with the mandated [50%]
diversion, means there is a great opportunity for vermiculture on
31
In Their Own Words
an economic scale in California. I definitely think that in the
arid, or southern states, you are going to have some vermiculture.
The problem, of course, in the northern states is that you have to
be indoors and you have basically a downtime in the winter.
CC: Perhaps the most frequent question asked by those who are
looking at the economic aspects of vermiculture is, Where are the
markets? Since you really don't sell worms, your principal endproduct is worm castings. What is the marketplace like today
and where is it headed?
BM: We've been fortunate in that trucks coming from central
California to deliver feed to the dairies here have been able to
take worm castings back to the agriculture area they started from.
We've been selling a great deal of our product to organic farmers
who have been getting tremendous results. I believe the market
for worm castings will get stronger in the days to come.
CC: What does the vermiculture industry need most at this time
in order to assure its continued success?
BM: I think a Best Management Practices Manual for
vermiculture needs to be produced in conjunction with the
CIWMB. As for a stronger industry voice, we don't have a
strong industry association now because there aren't enough
vermicomposting sites. Perhaps we could be a sub-organization
under the CRRA [California Resource Recovery Association].
We're [PSF] a part of the CCQC [California Compost Quality
Council]. We've talked about the few who are out there selling
worms and making exaggerated claims that are a blight to this
industry, but unfortunately, you're going to find them in any
industry.
32
Chapter Four
Jim Jensen
Yelm Earthworm and Castings Farm
Jim Jensen, a consultant with Seattle based
Sound Resource Management, has recently
added a new duty to his job description:
Worm Wrangler for the Yelm Earthworm &
Castings Farm in Yelm, WA.
Nestled in
Smith prairie southwest of Mt. Rainer, the farm
is located approximately 20 miles east of Olympia, WA. and
qualifies as one of the largest vermiculture operations on the
West Coast.
Jim is no stranger to vermicomposting. With Sound Resource
Management Group, Jim provided planning, development and
implementation for the Food Lifeline Waste Reduction
Demonstration Project sponsored by the King County Solid
Waste Division from the project proposal date of October, 1991
to the Final Report issued in January, 1994. During the 18
months of actual vermicomposting, from start-up of the bins
through the end of the demonstration project, the total amount of
waste diverted was estimated to be 27.5 tons of food scraps and
20.2 tons of bedding, mostly derived from on-site leaves and
brush. Based on data collected during the steady-state period, the
worm system demonstrated that as much as 60 pounds of food
waste, plus a minimum of 30 pounds of yard waste or paper
waste, can be composted in a pallet-box worm bin each week.
Food Lifeline is an organization that distributes food to many of
the food banks and meal programs in King County and Western
Washington. It receives, evaluates, and recovers foodstuffs from
33
In Their Own Words
food processing companies, warehouses, and supermarkets.
During the time Jensen and SRM were involved with the
vermicomposting project, Food Lifeline kept track of and
distributed approximately 825,000 pounds of food to people in
need each month. While the highest quality food is distributed to
the public through its many programs, food that is not suitable
for human consumption must be disposed. During 1991, the
agency's dumpsters contributed as much as 42,000 pounds of
unsalvageable food (spoiled produce and canned and packaged
food) to the nonresidential waste stream of King County each
month. Some of these residuals were sent to pig farms.
Vermicomposting offered an alternative to disposing unwanted
food at the landfill. In addition, vermicompost generated from
the worm bins was used in a nearby community garden that grew
food for Food Lifeline's programs.
The Yelm Earthworm & Casting Farm was, at one time, site of a
mushroom farm. About six years ago it was converted to a
worm farm and came under the ownership of Resource
Conversion Corporation (RCC) of San Diego, CA. RCC's
Canyon Recycling composting and vermicomposting site
brought worms from the Fallbrook Sanitary District where
wastewater sludge was fed to worms (see "Vermicomposting in a
Rural Community," The BioCycle Guide to the Art & Science of
Composting (1991), 143-145). RCC also brought in worms from
its Yelm farm in Washington. While worms raised in Yelm were
fed cow manure, the San Diego site used manure from zoos and
Del Mar racetrack as well as composted yard trimmings. Under
the "VermiGro" label, vermicompost was blended with
composted yard trimmings and sold in bags and in bulk. Now
the Yelm Earthworm & Casting Farm has come under the
ownership of SRM and the guidance of Jensen. As its name
proclaims, both worms and castings are the products sold. This
product "Earthworm All Purpose Potting Soil; Natural Castings
and Bedding," contains the following description: "This all-
34
Jim Jensen
purpose soil enhancer provides the look and feel of peat, plus the
added benefits of earthworm castings--the rich, all-natural source
of organic matter, nutrient- and moisture-holding capacity, slow
release nutrients and trace minerals. A little goes a long way!"
The Yelm operation uses two systems to convert cow manure to
vermicompost. One system utilizes 4'x6' wooden trays formerly
used for mushroom production. These trays have legs at the four
corners and can be stacked on top of each other. They are fairly
shallow having 6" sides.
Periodically, perhaps every two
months, half the contents of the trays (worms, castings and
manure) are removed and used to start a new tray or bin. Up to
200 of these trays can be placed in a room, maximizing the
usefulness of the indoor operation by stacking the trays four
high. The second system in use is the windrow design. These
are found both indoors and outdoors at the facility. Typically,
rows are fed until about 30 cubic yards of material is ready to be
harvested. Jim estimates each row contains about 1500 lbs. of
worms (50 lbs. of worms to the cubic yard). Overall, he figures
his operation currently has about 38,000 lbs. of worms. This
interview appeared in the August 1997 issue of Casting Call.
Casting Call: Even though you've had prior experience with
vermicomposting through your work with the Food Lifeline
project and for years you have been associated with many others
in the vermiculture industry, there must have been a tremendous
shift in your role as "coat-and-tie" consultant to the additional
role of managing the Yelm Farm. What have your new duties
taught you?
Jim Jensen: You know that saying, "Where the rubber meets
the road?" That's what this feels like. Where the rubber meets
the road--it's really hot and it can be really stressful, but it can be
really exhilarating. The work as a suit-and-tie consultant is a lot
of theorizing and reporting what other people do. A lot of it is
35
In Their Own Words
projecting out what you think should happen. And now this is a
real life situation where the projections sometimes match,
sometimes don't, sometimes they exceed your expectations. You
always hope it's more of the latter. But it's definitely very, very
exciting--trying to do what you've been thinking about or what
you've been suggesting for years.
CC: You have put together a two-page Literature Search on
Earthworm Castings, drawing together a series of quotes from
leading researchers around the world. Additionally, through
sales of your product, you've undoubtedly heard reports about its
performance. What do you tell folks about the value of worm
castings?
JJ: I try to encourage people who are looking at castings to
think about it as an additive to other organic products that they're
using. That's why we say "a little goes a long way" on our bag
of product. I'd love to have people do their whole landscape with
castings, but it's really not cost-effective to use them that way. If
what you're looking for is organic matter, there are a lot of other
cheaper sources. But castings are valued for their health-giving
properties. And using them in combination with other products
gives you more than just the sum of those two. The combination
of those provides you with much greater value than either one by
itself.
CC: Taking over a worm farm that has been in operation for six
years must have meant that you acquired a turn-key operation.
What modifications have you made or do you plan to make in
the future?
JJ: I don't know that I'd exactly call it "turn-key." Certainly
there was some equipment there and a worm population we
started with. What we're doing is moving deliberately. We're
trying to hold on to what works really well. The first few months
36
Jim Jensen
were involved with cleaning up and getting a sense of the
operation. The people who were there before are still there. I
have a lot of respect for what they know and what they do. We'll
be looking at some equipment possibilities and how we'll be
positioned in the market. Certainly worms are big part of this-this is really a traditional vermiculture operation, a worm farm,
but we'll be trying to do
something with castings
along the way too, trying to
get connected to a network
of businesses that are
involved
in
soil
improvement
and
restoration--that's
really
where the focus of this is, in
soil improvement. We'll probably look at some sort of bagging
operation and using the facility to be a source for bagging for
other operations as well. We're looking into a strategic alliance
with a company that's involved in organic gardening and farm
supplies. We might include working with other worm growers
as well.
CC: You have surveyed some of the worm industry's producers,
taking note of the prices being asked for worms and castings.
How do you feel your price position stands? What are the
factors that account for differences?
JJ: From what I've been able to gather, we're one of the biggest
farms in the western U.S. There are not a lot that operate at this
scale. I know that in terms of providing worms for the home or
for bigger vermicultural projects, I'm certain that we're very
competitive and maybe even setting even the low end of the
price, relative to what others are doing. I think with castings,
we're very competitive. We find a lot of interest from the locals.
We're gearing up for next spring and the next soil push that
37
In Their Own Words
comes around. We're looking forward to that. The biggest
challenge we face is distance. The Puget Sound region offers a
lot of opportunity. But we're about 30 minutes from the main
interstate corridor. That's a pretty good distance. Price is one
thing, but getting it to one place from another can add 20-30% of
a person's cost. But I think people will pay for quality.
CC: Dr. Clive Edwards' forthcoming Manual on
Vermicomposting will contain a chapter on the Commercial
Potential and Economics of Vermicomposting that he has asked
you to write. Have your experiences at the Yelm Farm
influenced your conclusions?
JJ: Having a few months of hands-on experience has opened
my eyes to a lot of what's out there and a lot of opportunities.
There's the traditional worm farm, which is what this is--it's a
vermicultural operation. There are a lot of people working in
resource recovery doing vermicomposting, and I don't really see
us doing that on a large scale. There are some compost
operations doing large-scale organics recovery. I think we'll do a
little bit of that on a small scale to provide a service for local
people.
And then there's a lot of interest in home
vermicomposting--providing worms and supplies and books--I
don't see us being involved in that so much. I think more than
anything I've become more aware of the seasonality of this
business. The worms go through their seasonal times. I think
there's a lot of opportunity for technological development. But I
think that's got to come from where's the value going to be. The
market for castings most likely is where the technological
development is going to happen.
CC: You've been experimenting with shipping small quantities
of worms in breathable plastic bags.
What have you
discovered? What other ways do you ship worms?
38
Jim Jensen
JJ: Wax-coated boxes are still a great idea and are probably the
best practice for shipping. But I've been thinking about all the
packaging that's used: What's the most efficient, most effective,
most cost-effective but the least impacting kind of package to
use? I've been thinking of some other ways to make the
packaging lighter weight and more recyclable. We've had some
good success with the bags but wax boxes are still great and we'll
continue to use those. I want to do lots of bulk sales--that's really
what we're set up to do. We've got something in the works there.
But I'm also looking at the packaging for the soil products too. I
just hate the idea of all these plastic bags. We're still researching
what other alternatives there might be that might work
effectively. Imagine people buying 20 or 30 bags of soil
amendments and having all this plastic around at the end—it
seems so self-defeating.
CC: Tell us about the dairy manure used for feedstock. How is
it prepared, delivered and applied? What are the results?
JJ: We're paying for delivery of dairy manure that has been
separated after sitting in a lagoon. The solids are removed from
the bottom and then the manure goes through a heating process
to dry it. We think this may have some value in reducing
pathogens. It has very consistent properties. It's better than the
wet manure that was brought in before.
CC: Your operation has approximately 33,000 square feet
(almost 3/4 acre) under cover. Currently, it looks like about 95%
or more of the material being worked by worms is under cover
with just a couple of outdoor windrows. Yet you still have a lot
of acreage which is not in use. Do you have plans for this area?
JJ: We hope to grow! There's nearly 10 acres total here. We
are interested in receiving leaf material this fall, and maybe wood
chips. I think the leaves could make a nice addition to the dairy
39
In Their Own Words
manure. I'd like to get our castings looking a little darker, or
maybe offer two kinds of castings. I see potential for moving
windrows outdoors with floating row covers over them. I see
potential for using the indoor space for product development,
packaging and warehousing. And we're interested in looking at
technology development too. You know I've worked with Dan
[Holcombe] over the years on his system. There's the potential
of adding something like that into the building or trying some of
the other technologies that have been developed. Maybe we
could be a testing ground for things like that—a place where
people can come and see different technologies in operation.
CC: What kinds of things would you like to see happen in order
for the vermiculture industry in general, and your business in
particular, to achieve greater growth?
JJ: I think it would be helpful if more of the opinion-makers
had more knowledge about the capabilities of vermicomposting.
It's interesting that people who are depended on for information
about nutrient and soil management don't know a lot about
composting and they know very little about vermicomposting. I
think there's a lot that could be learned and could be shared about
the value of castings. In the same way that compost has
received a lot of research dollars, I think worm castings need that
same kind of emphasis. We suspect and our customers believe
that there are growth enhancing properties there that aren't
necessarily found in compost--that the worm itself adds
something to this that is vital--that's why they're on the earth-they add value to soil. We should know more about what that
value is and the economic value of it. We also need to show
people that we're about serious business, the serious business of
improving soil. I think research dollars would help--R&D in
sustainable agriculture.
40
Jim Jensen
CC: Where do you see vermiculture headed in the coming
years? What obstacles lie ahead?
JJ: What I see is a lot more of the same. I still think there are a
lot of possibilities for the small and medium scale. There are
some big resource recovery operations in California. I think
you're going to see a good size scale of one of these new
technologies, something like the continuous flow reactor or some
other beast, that's engineered for doing worms and I think you'll
see that on a big scale. I think it'll come from the private sector
or a maybe a public-private partnership, but I don't think the
municipalities will do it on their own. There's some natural
advantages working with worms--their ability to control odors.
Obstacles are financial. A continuing obstacle is the lack of
information in the market about the added value of worm
castings. We're trying to set up field trials where we can. I still
think the agriculture market has huge potential. I think you're
going to see continual improvements made in technology like
automatic feeding and automatic harvesting.
41
Chapter Five
Al Eggen
Original Vermitech Systems, Ltd.
Albert Briggs Eggen was born in Vicksburg,
Mississippi. He spent his early years in San
Jose, CA, attending San Jose State, DeAnza
and Foothills colleges. He graduated with a
degree in Aeronautics, with a minor in
technical and performing arts. He also
pursued a course of study in speech and
voice at the Royal Conservatory of Music, Ontario, Canada.
Al served in the United States Army Officers School (OCS),
and was a U.S. Army paratrooper in Asia. He has also been
an airline pilot.
Albert holds three international patents. These include the
self-harvesting Vermi-Organic Digester, a paper and food
waste processor, and the Original Vermicomposter, an indoor
home/school vermicomposter. He is also the co-author of
three books on vermicomposting, two of which are college
course manuals. A fourth, "The Canadian Vermicomposting
Guide," is scheduled for publication.
In 1990, Al founded Original Vermitech Systems, Ltd. (OVS)
of Toronto, Canada. While at one time the bulk of company
sales came from the manufacture of small, household worm
bins, Eggen's larger in-vessel systems, capable of handling
from 50 to 850 pounds of organics per day are now the
company's chief focus.
42
Al Eggen
In 1992 OVS began marketing vermicomposting units capable
of processing 50 to 100 lbs. of organics per day from
restaurants, schools and institutions with food waste. In 1993,
the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital in Ontario, Canada
installed an OVS unit with 600 lbs./day capacity.
The
system was equipped with heat panels and temperature
sensors to maintain the proper climate for the earthworms.
("New Horizons for Commercial Vermiculture,” BioCycle,
October, 1994, 58-59.)
In March 1996 an OVS unit known as the Vermi-Organic
Digester was installed at Metro Hall in Toronto. Metro Hall is
the head office of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, a
28-story, 953,500 square foot building located in the heart of
downtown Toronto. It houses two thousand employees and
has a 325-seat cafeteria with an additional 200-seat patio. It
produces almost 14 metric tons of food waste and almost 30
metric tons of paper towel waste annually. (Casting Call,
Feb. 1997).
Eggen believes his Vermi-Organic Digesters will appeal
particularly to military bases and hotels. Recently, proposals
have been submitted to Arnold Air Force Base (Tennessee), to
Camp Lejeune Marine Base (North Carolina), and to the
Royal York Hotel in Toronto, one of the Canadian Pacific
hotels.
Pre-consumer vegetative food waste (source
separated) provides an optimum feedstock along with
shredded paper, most often available from discarded paper
hand towels.
Somewhere between his early years in California and his
subsequent migration to Canada in order to pursue a career in
acting, Al developed an interest in earthworms which he has
maintained for over 25 years. By 1990, leaving his acting
career behind, Eggen was ready to launch into vermiculture
43
In Their Own Words
full tilt. He estimates he has visited over 200 worm
operations over the course of his years in the industry and he
continues to maintain contact with many in the field. This
interview appeared in the October 1997 issue of Casting Call.
Casting Call: You've had a wide variety of experiences
during your lifetime: paratrooper, actor, inventor,
vermiculturist. But this interest in earthworms has persisted
for over 25 years. What attracted you initially and what
continues to maintain your interest in vermiculture?
Al Eggen: Initially, I became aware of earthworms while
building some ski chalets. In building those chalets I never
noticed any earthworms whatsoever while doing excavation
work. On completion, I went fishing and needed to find some
worms. Near an old miner's cabin where refuse had been
discarded I found all kinds of worms, some of which I brought
back to the ski chalet I had built. I put some near a septic
tank, thinking that the heat from the septic tank would keep
them alive over the winter. That winter, the temperature went
down to 44 degrees below zero. In the spring, I kicked around
the septic tank and found a prolific growth of worms. I began
to build worm boxes on the third story of the deck of my ski
chalet, 18 inches high, and two feet wide. I built many boxes
feeding the worms horse manure, hay, paper, and food waste.
I also started growing things up there. It was absolutely mindboggling to see the growth rate of plants. The flowers grew so
fast that the stems got weak. The vegetable plants became big
and bushy. The next thing I saw was an operation in Alberta
and I have never been able to go back and see them again.
They were using an airplane hangar bringing in semi-trucks
[of waste] and doing heat pasteurization. They said they were
using a worm from China. It may have been an African
nightcrawler. Although it caught my interest and made an
impact on me, I didn't get involved with them, turning to an
44
Al Eggen
acting career instead. Later, through the Recycling Council in
Canada, I got involved with building worm bins. It was a lot
of work and cost
some
money.
But
it
was
something
I
enjoyed. But I
was working in
other areas too.
Then, in about
1989, I began
looking at a
waste site in
Toronto, finding
tons of worms. That's when I saw that we could do this in a
big way.
After that I put together the Original
Vermicomposter. What continues to maintain my interest is
the worldwide problem we have with waste and problems
with erosion and poor soil. Getting rid of garbage and
creating a soil product (castings) are extraordinarily
important.
CC: There seem to be three levels, or tiers, of interest in
vermicomposting:
home
vermicomposting,
schools
(educational systems), and large-scale commercial
vermicomposting. There may be a fourth tier, an institutional
level, consisting of hotels, hospitals, prisons, restaurants, and
the like, which have an abundance of food waste to dispose.
You've tried to impact all these markets. Can you assess
where these levels of interest are heading?
AE: In Ontario, Canada, we've pretty much exhausted the
box system, because of the lack of government subsidies and
saturation in the market. Because of that I think the future is
in larger systems. In the educational field, we have to develop
45
In Their Own Words
workbooks along with a system that coordinates with that--not
just to teach the biology of it, but the whole program
including business projects selling castings. This is what we
tried to do in Pennsylvania. The next level is on-site
composting, because it saves money by reducing hauling.
These go up to a certain size, 1,000 lbs. or a ton per day. If
we can take care of that, we've got a market we can't even
begin to fulfill in my lifetime. What happens is you get into a
square footage situation. I figured one time, that if you're
doing 3,000 lbs. per day you'd need 10,000 square feet of
working area. That's the next area for someone to conquer.
The Christenberry's (Vermicycle Organics, North Carolina)
are getting very close to that.
CC: Your manual, Worms Go To School, is a teacher's guide
for vermicomposting. You've tried to show teachers how
involvement in a Vermi-Lab can have an impact on the arts,
language, mathematics, science, technology, and social
studies. That's a pretty tall order. What has been the
response?
AE: We really haven't gotten the book out there to a lot of
people yet I'm hoping that's going to change. I've got about 5
different models of my Vermi-Lab. It's been a cost thing for
marketing. I have an order for about 300 of the teacher's
guides for Nova Scotia. A number of local teachers in
Toronto reviewed the book and liked it very well, saying it's a
well-structured book. Generally, from all the professionals as
far as the worm people, they've all pretty well liked it, and I'd
asked them to pick it apart as far as the technical end of it.
CC: The Vermi-Organic Digester can handle a wide range of
organic waste volumes, from 50 to over 850 lbs. per day. The
key to the system's effectiveness seems to be in attaining a
consistent particle size and proper mixture proportions so that
46
Al Eggen
the digesting ability of the worms can be optimized. How do
you ensure this?
AE: The biggest difficulty, initially, was coming up with a
shredder that works. We've gone through a number of
shredders. The first couple I did cost over $10,000 apiece.
They were a different type, and were very powerful. They
were high torque/low rev. They crunched a lot of things up
but we couldn't get the particle size we needed. In order to get
that we had to get a higher speed motor that would chop it up
more to give us the smaller particle size. The shredder has
been one of the main keys to this whole process. Without the
right particle size the material doesn't disappear fast enough in
order for the worms to keep up with all the material being put
in. The moisture and temperature are also factors we have to
control, monitoring with a thermostat and offering an optional
misting system. The more items you tack on, the higher the
cost.
CC: Without mentioning names, you have said that you have
visited a number of vermicomposting sites, or know about
them, and have learned that some of these sites have serious
problems. What are the problems that these folks are
experiencing and what are your recommendations?
47
In Their Own Words
AE: The reason I've gone to this automatic system with all
the controls on it is that for years and years everyone has been
doing the "box system," i.e. a container you could raise worms
in. The problem with that is that you can only put so much
into it. The problems occurring are that the system either
heats up or goes anaerobic. When you get into larger systems
you see these problems, and if too much food is put in and it
heats up, you can have a worm kill. A box means that the
worms have nowhere to go and it acts like an oven. These
were the problems I've had and I've seen it in other systems
that others have used. Other problems some have had have
been with rodents and odors in open systems.
CC: Canada does not seem to be a likely place to establish a
business in vermiculture. Here's a chance to disabuse us of
our false perceptions. What exactly is happening in Canada
with respect to vermiculture?
AE: Through the Recycling Council of Canada, I've received
a lot of support and probably wouldn't have gotten here
without that support. My first project was funded for the
Harbor Front area, a city-owned project down by the
waterfront. Some smaller ones came along for schools, and
then I did a project at the University of Ottawa, and then
Brockville [Psychiatric Hospital]. Then the Toronto Metro
project came along. Government funding for the small worm
boxes got me started in 1990. Interest has been spurred
largely by the government. In Nova Scotia, a year from
November, there will be a ban on landfills and thermophilic
composting. They're either going to ship all this stuff out or
there will have to be an alternative for handling waste on site.
The government will fund, through a works program, 50% of
a program to create jobs and handle waste. We've been
working with a large steel corporation to do manufacturing,
and a consulting company to build Vermi-Digesters. Pilot
48
Al Eggen
projects are proposed for a college and another Canadian
Pacific Hotel in Halifax. The proposal speaks of a $12
million market manufacturing approximately 275 VermiDigesters at a cost of $43,000 each. The target is to process
16,500 tons of material which represents about 10% of the
organic waste stream. We're looking at starting this in about 6
months or less.
CC: You've got a terrific system for converting organic waste
into a usable soil amendment. It is relatively odor-free, is
much faster than composting, uses little energy, reduces
collection, hauling, and landfill costs, and, with the sales of
vermicompost, not only offsets the cost of operation, but can
become a profitable venture once the system has been paid
for. Is this too good to be true? What are the drawbacks or
potential pitfalls? Is the system trouble-free?
AE: On a smaller system, it really isn't going to pay a lot (our
V-200 or V-300). But when you start getting above that
capacity, you start getting into a break-even situation or even
making some money. On a 550 lbs. per day system, one payoff projected is three and a half to 4 years. Using another way
to calculate from sales of castings, the pay-off is between 2
and 3 years. It depends on the volume of material being
processed. Up to this date, the main pitfalls have concerned
moisture. We've taken care of problems with heat build-up,
so now we're trying to take care of dehydration. An automatic
misting system will take care of that. The very biggest pitfall
is operator attention--not monitoring conditions in the system.
CC: Launching a venture such as this entails a great deal of
thought, organization and, of course, money. There may be
skepticism to overcome, and proof required that the systems
you've created actually work. In all, there seem to be a
number of challenges you must deal with before your systems
49
In Their Own Words
of vermicomposting will become widely accepted. How are
you planning to face these challenges and possible objections?
AE: We've built a system that we've operated for almost a
year and a half now. It's still being maintained by people
other than us and is doing very well. So we've proven that it
works. Anybody can call up Chris Fernandez at Metro and
get a straight answer from them. Then some other people
came up to look at the system--from Arnold Air Force Base-and now want a larger system than they originally planned.
That's what you have to do. Whoever is building a system has
to let it operate for at least a year and go through the cycles
where other people take care of it and you don't have a
problem. We have plans to do a 1,000 lbs. per day system at a
Food Bank in Pittsburg. These people came up to see it. Just
about every sale we've done so far has been as a result of
seeing it.
CC: What has caused you the most discouragement during
the course of your involvement in vermiculture? What
experience has brought the most elation?
AE: Money. It's the old entrepreneurial thing. I've gone long
periods not being able to do anything because I have no
money. That's the frustrating part, that I know what to do, but
I have no money to do it. The other part of it is the same
thing in reverse--to be able to see it and know that it's going to
work. Until you actually see it working, so that you can know
that you can walk away from it and somebody else operates it,
then you know it works. Knowing and seeing that the thing
works, that's what's brought me the greatest elation.
CC: Tell us about your vision for the future, not only with
respect to the success of your own business, but for the
direction of vermiculture as a whole.
50
Al Eggen
AE: Unfortunately, in our society today, you've got to go to a
machine-oriented unit with all the bells and whistles so that
people will believe this thing works. It almost has to be a
hands-off situation, where you go in and press a couple
buttons and do the proper maintenance. Then the big people,
the money people will take a look at this thing and say, "OK,
this thing really works. We believe in worms." I think once
that happens, the rest of the vision can go on. The machines
are going to help. But the real essence of this worm
composting, as I see it, is that let's say in third world countries
with a handful of worms and the right conditions, worms will
propagate. If we can get to the point where we can solve a lot
of problems for people to compost and create topsoil: That's
my vision, that vermiculture and vermicomposting can create
topsoil and help feed all mankind.
CC: Is there anything you'd like to add that we haven't talked
about?
AE: I guess I'm the same as a lot of people in this particular
field. I get really upset with people trying to make money doing a
quick scam operation with worms. It's been the history of the
worm field--this whole worm-scam thing, whether it's a pyramid
or people saying you can make millions in a short time. At some
point in time here, I think there's going to have to be some real
exposure of these people.
51
Chapter Six
Larry Martin
Vermitechnology Unlimited Inc.
Larry D. Martin heads up Vermitechnology
Unlimited, Inc., in Orange Lake, Florida. For
over twenty years, he has been both a student of
earthworm ecology and leader in the field of
vermicomposting.
Martin grew up on a Midwestern farm and witnessed how
worms produced healthy soil. In 1974 he purchased two pounds
of redworms from Ron Gaddie's Southern California operation,
put them in a patio planter box, and began feeding them kitchen
scraps. Within a year, Larry constructed about 80 feet of worm
beds, thus beginning his career in vermiculture. From that time
to the present, Martin continued to expand his worm inventory
without buying additional worms. In 1990 he moved his West
Coast operation, Solano Worm Farm, to Florida, along with 400
pounds of worms shipped to him by the buyer of his California
property.
During the late 1970s, Martin saw firsthand how unscrupulous
opportunists bilked investors out of thousands of dollars
promoting exaggerated buy-back schemes. By the end of the
decade the pyramid scheme had crashed, leaving many
disheartened and bitter people in its wake. The devastation
caused by these scoundrels has prompted Martin to repeatedly
warn would-be growers of a resurgence of nefarious wormrogues. In the Earthworm Buyer's Guide 1996-97, Martin's fullpage ad includes the following caveat: "THE BIG RIP-OFF
52
Larry Martin
SCAM OF THE 70s has reared its ugly head again!!!! Keep in
mind that it is better to spend $250 for a consultant than spend
your life savings on a buyback, get-rich-quick scheme." He
concludes: "Let's bury this UGLY PARASITE before it ruins the
vermicomposting industry."
During the first half of the 1980s, Martin's focus was mainly
upon the bait industry. He experimented with special nutrients,
different combinations of animal manures, produce, feeds and
supplements. He found an amino acid combination which grew
a slightly larger redworm and increased cocoon production and
hatchling viability. In 1986, Martin began working with Al
Eggen of Toronto, Canada and met Mary Appelhof. It was
during this time that his focus shifted from the bait market to that
of vermicomposting.
In February, 1995, Larry assisted Goodwill Industries of
Chattanooga, Tennessee in constructing two 50-foot long worm
beds on a concrete floor. The six-foot wide, two-feet high beds
process half a ton per week of cow and rabbit manure, along with
some produce and shredded paper. The project, dubbed
"Goodworms Industries," uses disabled workers to attend to the
worm beds and produce bags for selling worms and castings.
Vermitechnology Unlimited offers pre-fabricated, modular,
insulated (R-30) worm beds, four feet wide by 18 inches high,
with lengths up to 65 feet. Such beds have been set up for
schools in the Chattanooga area as well as in Florida. Heavyduty shade cloth is used on the bottom to keep out ground moles.
Forthcoming projects include vermicomposting cow manure and
food waste in Northern California, using composted leaves as
worm feedstock in Connecticut, hog waste projects in Iowa and
Missouri, and work with Florida's Office of Environmental
Education to include vermicomposting into classroom education.
53
In Their Own Words
This interview appeared in the December 1997 issue of Casting
Call.
Casting Call: Over the past 20 years you have undoubtedly
seen many folks "come and go" in the worm industry. Certainly
there must have been times when you have been discouraged.
What continues to maintain your interest in vermiculture and to
serve as motivation?
Larry Martin: I think the reason most people come and go in
the worm industry is because of all the hype. I saw through this
hype (during the 70s) and didn't go through the disappointment
of facing reality. This is a very huge stumbling block. My
research shows after one year about 1% will pick themselves up
and remain in business. A disappointment, but sort of a fun thing
for me was trying to prove UC Davis wrong when I was at
Solano Worm Farm, in creating a hybrid worm. They said it
couldn't be done, and I knew it, but I just had to see for myself.
There's still a lot of people out there who use the term "hybrid"
worms. But I've yet to see one, let alone develop one. If I could,
I would cross an "Alabama Jumper" with a redworm. You'd get
the size of an "Alabama Jumper" and the durability and
reproductivity of a redworm. That would be my ideal. I have
been importing a European nightcrawler that has been exciting
for me. I don't know species of it yet, but I do know that it is
everything that I just described a bait worm should be. I think I
was discouraged in the first few years, learning by trial and error.
I had all these worms and nobody would help me as far as
marketing, and nobody would talk to me when I had problems. I
finally found somebody to buy my worms. By the time I
traveled 150 miles to sell the worms for $3.00 a pound to them, I
made about a buck-and-a-half or $2.00 a pound. At least it was
money! But that was probably the most discouraging part. And
it was also very hard to move from California to Florida.
Probably the most agonizing time I've had was an hour spent on
54
Larry Martin
a talk show talking about vermicomposting and vermiculture,
and I only got one caller. But that caller made it all worthwhile.
What continues to motivate me is the same thing that has been
driving me all these years. It's when you see the feedstock being
consumed, instead of being buried, and the beautiful, finished
product. Castings have the same kind of feeling as good virgin
topsoil with that earthy smell that can only come from the high
organic content. It is just something that gets into your blood.
That has been more or less the driving force, more than the
monetary aspect.
CC: You've built your worm business on both coasts, in
California and Florida. Obviously, a warm climate has
contributed to the vitality of your redworms. How practical is
year-round vermicomposting in colder climates and what
provisions need to be made?
LM: There's two different things we need to address: There's
vermicomposting and vermiculture. Vermicomposting is no
problem. If you want to build and maintain a windrow or static
pile, however you want to do it, you can vermicompost the year
round. It's not easy. When it's 40 degrees below zero, you aren't
going to be out there putting out material. Ideally, you'd at least
have a cover, even if the materials were frozen. Inside, in the
inner shell, it would be like an igloo. I put worms in an operation
in Canada, during the coldest year they ever had, in a compost
bed. Those worms, come spring, were still alive and they were
big and fat and all kinds of egg capsules were hatching. It was
40 degrees below Centigrade then--that's cold!
In
vermicomposting, you can do that. In vermiculture, no. You
need some type of auxiliary heating, green houses and the like.
Ideally, you wouldn't use ambient heat, either. In a warehouse, if
you were doing large-scale vermicomposting, you would need
something in the floor, like a hot water heating unit. It becomes
very costly in very cold climates. Heating costs are going to
55
In Their Own Words
reduce your profits in vermiculture in colder climates. That was
my main motivation for moving to Florida, to go year-round, but
it really hasn't been that beneficial. I don't get that many more
sales in wintertime, because a lot of people don't think anybody
can ship then, for one thing. And I'm not high profile as far as
advertising goes. But I am putting in a website, though.
CC: In Florida you've been faced with armadillos, migratory
birds, raccoons, moles, and the dreaded flatworm. You've also
said that "just when you think you have seen it all or know it all,
the big reality stick hits you up along side of your head." Where
are the problems today, both for those just starting out and for the
larger operations?
LM: You're going to have minor problems no matter where
you're operating. But nothing major like the land planarian,
commonly called the flatworm, which was the most devastating
experience I've ever had. And I've experienced this for a period
of 3 out of 5 years. The Cubans have had the same problem and
you'll have this in any tropical or sub-tropical area. That worm
has wiped out over 3,000 pounds in less than seven days. That's
how fast they reproduce. When all the worms are gone they start
turning cannibalistic and start consuming each other. I have no
idea, and neither does the University, where they go from there.
Very, very few people ever rebound from being wiped out. I've
been contacted by 8 people this year who were wiped out in
Florida, from northern Florida all the way down to the Keys. I
don't know how many other people were wiped out in small
farms or backyard operations--they never knew what hit them.
But the growers who contacted me wanted to know why they
weren't getting any reproduction.
Well it wasn't the
reproduction--they had it--it's just these worms came in and
consumed all the small worms which were feeding on the
surface. The flatworms only go a couple inches below the
surface. So the larger worms, being down further in the bed,
56
Larry Martin
survived until they came up to feed. And then they were wiped
out too. But everybody that is vermicomposting is going to run
into a problem, sooner or later, of some type. The biggest
problem is contamination from insecticides or toxic anaerobic
bacteria. If that is not washed out of the material you're feeding,
you're going to kill worms. That's why, in a very large operation,
where you can't afford to reduce your input of feedstock, then
you need a backup. And that means raising worms differently,
for the sake of raising worms. For intensive propagation I use an
insulated incubator, made of fiberglass and polystyrene with a
thermostat keeping the optimum temperature within plus or
minus one degree. It's used to produce between 500,000 and
650,000 hatchlings per month out of one unit. The bedding is
composed of organic peat, some horse manure and cow manure,
all run through a pulverizer. The feedstock is something I've
developed over the years. In sum, I see no difference in
problems encountered in small operations as opposed to large
commercial ventures, except for capital outlay. The most
difficult vermicomposting operation is the plastic classroom or
home bin. It's very unforgiving. I've always told folks, if they
can do it in plastic bin, they could run the largest
vermicomposting operation in the world. A plastic bin doesn't
allow any room for error. That is the most difficult, for me
personally, and for me to teach. The worms can't get away from
bad material in a plastic bin.
CC: You've consulted and worked with many others throughout
the vermicomposting industry. Who is demonstrating that this
can be a successful, profitable enterprise?
LM: That, I'd rather not cover. That's private, actually, between
me and the people I consult with. Whatever has been published
out there, I feel you can contact those folks and talk to them
directly.
57
In Their Own Words
CC: You've been an outspoken critic of fraud and the charlatans
who deceive would-be worm growers. What are the best
weapons against the pickpockets? Can reputable worm growers
do something?
LM: The best thing I think we can do to clean up the industry is
don't participate in perpetuating hearsay. That can be very
damaging to new people in the industry, but also it helps the
person who is running a scam by perpetuating their operation.
Another thing is to write letters to the media, when you see them
reporting information that is bogus or erroneous. But it takes
more than you and me and a couple of others in the industry. I've
spent a lot of my own time and money, and I'm just getting tired.
It's not very rewarding when you talk to people, spending your
own money talking to them on the phone. It gets a little
depressing when somebody has put their life savings into a scam.
It's something that's a real downer for me. But I've not done
much in that area in the past 3 or 4 months. I think it's time for
someone else to pick up the ball. People send me newspaper ads,
wanting me to answer if this is for real--"Can I make a thousand
dollars a day?" I answer them, and with my answer I send
information to the Attorney General of the state, alerting them.
I've gotten back a few letters of thanks from Attorney Generals,
damn few. Anyway, it takes a real commitment to do this, year
after year. When you see this guy making a couple million
dollars off of scams, and you're trying to eke out a living doing
something right--there's been difficult years, you know. I think
everybody needs to get involved. If you had an association--they
should do the policing, not me. If there's any association that I
ever get involved in, it will be one that will police the integrity of
the industry, not just collect dues. There's more to a worm
grower's association than collecting dues. I won't elaborate on
that because that's another issue that I get a little upset with.
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Larry Martin
CC: You told U.S. News & World Report that your company
sells around 100 tons of castings to local organic growers.
Additionally, you predicted that "in five to 10 years, every
commercial fertilizer company will be selling worm castings."
How is it that you have sold so much and what is attracting so
much interest in castings?
LM: Actually, what I've sold isn't a drop in the bucket to what I
could have sold. My focus has been on promoting
vermicomposting and worm sales, brokering worms for my
growers, because I do feel a commitment to them. I estimated
aggressively marketing castings in the year 2000. Recently,
before that article came out, I modified my business plan to start
next year. To do that I figured I needed an automated system
which is coming into play. As an example of aggressive
marketing, I can tell you about a Florida TV station, with a callin program on gardening and landscaping. I plan on presenting a
joint project to the host of that show. I can give you an idea of a
joint venture of bagging castings under his name, through his
nursery and other nurseries in just the Orlando area. From the
market research I've done, with $250,000 in start up costs, with
one full-time and 2 to 3 part-time people, you could produce
about ten tons of castings per week. The first year's projected
income is about $15,000 per week for the first year's spring and
fall marketing. Within 3 years, still in just the greater Orlando
area, you could generate about $250,000 a month in sales. It
would take some time to show people that you have a nice
looking bag they'll buy. And then they'll find that each time they
buy this nice looking bag, they're getting the same material, not
different each time. But it helps if you have someone, like a TV
person, that could give some spot promotions. That could give
instant success. But you could double or triple that if you set up
a composting and casting market where you did custom blends
and bulk sales. A blend of both compost and castings is what I
like. Compost is long-term therapy; castings you get almost
59
In Their Own Words
immediate results--although it’s slow-release. Good quality
compost is very slow release. I have reassessed my impression
of worm castings longevity. I have fruit trees in my orchard that
were planted in old worm beds. They have been there now for
five years now and I have not put one bit of castings on or one bit
of fertilizer. And they are still growing fruits like you can't
believe, just as if I had done 2 or 3 applications of castings.
CC: Let's talk about the international interest. You have been
consulting with Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. What can
you tell us about the interest in vermiculture in the mid-East and
other places around the world?
LM: The interest isn't in the sales of worms or castings but in the
technology so that they can produce their own high-quality
castings. I have representatives in both the United Arab Emirates
and in Asia. I'd like to say that it's easy marketing, but that
would be a lie. It's taken me 2 or 3 years of very hard work to
establish my credibility in marketing overseas. My representative
right now is negotiating with a company in U.A.E. to do a
commercial automated facility on a very large scale. The
feedstock they're interested in vermicomposting is waste from
the fishing industry, manure and produce. In turn, they want to
see if I can set up a meeting with a U.S. company in producing
fish bonemeal. An Asian company wanted me to agree to
market castings for a system that would not be automated-because labor is so cheap there. I expect to hear more from
them, but I haven't had the time to pursue it. We're still in the
beginning stages of negotiations. It may never come to pass. I
never get my hopes up until it does. But I feel better about this
than any other venture overseas that I've done. Other countries
I've talked to have been Japan, Brazil, Venezuela, Indonesia, and
China. The technology that the U.A.E. is interested in is an
automated unit, 16 feet wide and 100 feet long with a center
divider down it. It sits on a slab. The divider has supports for a
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Larry Martin
roof, which may be solid or shade cloth. What I try to do in any
system I set is to try to simulate the natural, the native
environment of the worm I'm using. So, if it rains, it comes down
from the roof, it's not sprayed in from the side, it's not doused
with water--it's misted from the top. The surface needs the
moisture, and the bottom of the bed should be at about 40%
moisture content. It's got an automated misting system in it that's
set on a timer. If you're in an area where water is a concern the
misting system acts as a coolant to cool down the beds and to
keep the top portion of the bed damp. It has a casting extractor
which is powered by a hydraulic motor. It fits on a 3-point hitch
of a tractor. You hook up the hydraulic pump to a tractor. It will
produce an average of 20 cubic yards every 3-4 weeks. You
have a natural system, i.e., feeding the surface and removing
finished product from the bottom. As you're going down the bed
removing the castings from the bottom, the top just drops down 4
or 5 inches and you keep feeding. When it gets up to the top
again then you remove the castings. You've got 2-foot sides on
Design for Casting Extractor
there so the bottom part of the material is 99% pure castings, i.e.,
all the feed is consumed and the worms and egg capsules remain
in the top 10 to 12 inches. You top feed with a mixing wagon. I
develop recipes for the feedstock: 1500 lbs. of this, 2,000 lbs. of
that, and 3,000 lbs. of this, mix it for about 5 minutes and then
run it right down the worm bed. It's 8-feet wide on one side and
on the other side it's 8-feet wide, for a total of 16 feet. The guy
actually has to get off the tractor and rake it out. The sides of the
61
In Their Own Words
beds are elevated 8 inches between the slab and the bottom of the
sides. The casting extractor goes right underneath the sides. It
starts at the end, and it pulls the castings out from the bottom.
The sides don't sit on the slab; they're supported by the center
divider. You start out with 12 inches of bedding on the concrete
floor. In about 3 to 4 months, the bedding is turned into castings.
The bed begins to fill up the rest of the way. You never want the
bed to be less than 16 inches in height. You can harvest more
often, but you want to give the worms time enough to clean up
all the organic waste. I want 99% pure castings, not half
compost and half castings. If I want to mix compost with it I can
do that. What comes out of my worm beds is castings, not a
mixture. You would stock 1800 lbs. Of worms in the 16 by 100
area, just over one pound per square foot. You don't have
moving parts with this, you don't have down time, you don't have
breakdowns. It's as natural as you can get, the worms are on the
ground. You know why I recommend a slab? For nematodes.
This way you will not have to sterilize your castings and kill all
the normal bacteria that you need, the microorganisms is what
really makes them so beneficial. And if you can assure the
people there's no nematodes in there--if it doesn't come into
contact with the soil then you aren't going to have a nematode
population. To be shipped to places like Japan, the Japanese
aren't going to buy any castings if they know that they've been in
contact with the earth. They won't buy them, period. They
demand it.
CC: Technology. What does that mean in the growing
vermicomposting industry?
Where are we headed with
mechanization and what can we expect with regard to application
of feedstocks, harvesting, and other factors?
LM: Where has technology taken us? Not really far. The proof
of the technology is in the finished product, not in how you get
that product. You can have all the bells and whistles, modems,
62
Larry Martin
monitoring systems--you can have all that. But if you're
producing a poor quality product, so what? When castings smell
like garbage, it probably is garbage. If we're going to sustain the
industry we must be more concerned with the quality of the
product than the high dollars in the front end that you'll receive
from a tipping fee. The design I talked about setting up over
there [in the mid-East], hopefully, if things go well, the first one
will be going in in Northern California. It all depends on money.
I don't set up the worm beds themselves. I've got the plans. To
save money people can do it themselves or sub-contract it. I'm
working with the University of Florida. Hopefully, I'll get some
funding to do a pilot here. I can build a single unit that will take
care of 250 head of dairy cows or about 2,000 head of hogs for
under $5,000. That's for the slab, the supports, the sides of the
bin, the roof, and the misting system. That's not a big outlay.
The biggest outlay is $20,000 for the extractor and another
$18,000 for the standard pulverizer. But the pulverizer is also
used so you don't have to screen your castings. When the
castings come out, it comes out like in a little windrow, on a
concrete slab. You come on with a bucket loader on the concrete
slab and load it up. Or you can get real sophisticated and use a
"walking floor" and the castings can be taken right over to a
processing facility. It all depends on how much money you've
got to play with. I don't care how you do it, just so you do it
right. If I do aggressively start marketing castings, I can enter
into an agreement with these farms so they can have the good
income, and not give them away for $5.00/yd like some compost
people do.
CC: You've spent considerable time working with schools.
What has attracted your interest in educational institutions?
LM: When I retire from this industry, that's all I'm going to do is
schools, because that's what I enjoy most. It was my kids that
pointed out that I shouldn't throw a gum wrapper, etc., on the
63
In Their Own Words
ground because I was contributing, like millions of other fathers,
to the pollution of our earth. And these were elementary kids at
the time. So they really opened my eyes. I was not into
recycling. Six, seven, and eight-year old kids convinced me that
I should be setting a good example and that I could make a
difference--one person at a time. (The kids started an
educational pyramid.) This is what led me into the local
elementary school with the worm bin. I saw the excitement in
the kids, and the parents, who came over to buy worms from me,
because the kids wanted to take their scraps to a worm bin. The
parents didn't understand it, but they knew their kids were
excited about it, and it was good. It is self-satisfying. You come
away from doing a workshop for a school feeling good about
yourself and what you just accomplished and, hopefully, the
changes that will come from the fruits of your labor.
CC: If you knew twenty years ago what you know today, what
would you have done differently?
LM: Probably nothing. I'd probably even trust the liar that cost
me my credibility in Japan and the Japanese casting market. I
just believe in people. That's something that was instilled in me
by parents that were born before the 1900s. Sort of oldfashioned, but I still believe in people. But anyway it was a blow.
Two years of hard, time-consuming work, establishing my
credibility that was blown with one blowhard that lied to me
about what he had already up in place. And when the meeting
was scheduled for the Japanese to come visit, all of a sudden it's
not there. His projections were presented to me as fact, when in
reality it was no more than a figment of his imagination. That's
why I don't depend on anyone else in this industry but myself.
That was a hard lesson to learn. But it hasn't shaken my faith in
mankind. Maybe once every two years I'll get a bad check. I
probably wouldn't put my family through what I put them
through in re-establishing myself on this coast. It was hard to
64
Larry Martin
leave the comfort of a $60,000 a year income to pursue a vision
and what you're really committed to--helping to establish a
worthwhile industry. But not once did my wife or the kids ever
ask me to set it aside and get a "real job." But the kids, when
they became teenagers, didn't tell their friends their daddy is a
worm farmer. They'd say "he's a pharmacist--although he isn't
practicing pharmacy anymore," or "vermitechnologist," or
"vermiculturalist," but never a "worm farmer." But I was
committed too early. It would have been much easier if I had
waited until it was in vogue. It would have been so much easier.
In the past two years it's just incredible--people craving for
knowledge how to do this. Not just commercially, but for to use
it in their homes. Now I'm doing some consulting with some
schools in Illinois on the Internet in a private chat room. They've
purchased 8 hours of consulting time to do it, so that's great.
CC: Interest in vermiculture continues to escalate. There has
been national media attention (both good and bad), and a
proliferation of activity on the Internet. Inquiries come from
around the world asking for information. What role do you hope
to have in vermiculture in the 21st century?
LM: The growth is going to be exponential, I believe. It's there.
With the advent of an automated unit, it will make available a
quality product that is consistent. Not only from one bag to the
next, but from one year to the next. I do believe, and I'm really
committed to this, that the unit I have is the answer to filling the
pipeline with castings. And that's where the money is going to
be. The money is not in the worms. It's a living. But the money
is in the castings. Nationally, from last year, the demand for
organic produce is up 30%. And do you know why it's not up
higher than that? Because that's all that was available. They sold
everything they produced. It would have been a 100% increase
if they would have had the products to sell. I worked with a
5,000-acre citrus grove in Vero Beach. Indian River fruit is some
65
In Their Own Words
of the best fruit produced in the country. He is now certified
organic and he uses compost and worm castings. So that's where
it's at. The home organic grower, the commercial truck farmer,
and the very large commercial farms. It's there. And the bottom
line is availability. Either you set them up on each large farm
where they do there own there, or you provide them with a
quality product at a price they can afford. I'm not saying, "give it
away." But I'm not saying charge them $500/ton for castings,
because they aren't going to buy it. But you don't give them
away at $15 or $30 per yard either. Our prices here will settle
between $80 and $120 per yard. I've been in a very poor part of
the area here and I get between $40-$80, depending on quantity.
Brokering is all I have, because I sold my worm farm. I have a
demonstration farm here; that's all I have time for. I know how
to grow worms. I don't need the practice anymore. I don't need
those damn flatworms to come in and wipe me out. After being
wiped out twice, I said, "That's it." I got rid of a partner, the
farm, and the worm problem at the same time. And that's the
best thing that ever happened. I didn't really start to grow until
that happened. That's when I got time to really focus on the
business, instead of growing worms. In closing, I will say that to
be really successful in this industry, you must be knowledgeable
in the principles of composting as well as recognizing a quality
compost and apply this to your vermicomposting operations.
Maybe one day Drs. Harold Hoitink and Clive Edwards of Ohio
State University could collaborate on this very subject.
66
Chapter Seven
Al Cardoza
Rainbow Worm Farm
For twenty-two years Al
Cardoza's Rainbow Worm
Farm has seen steady growth,
largely due to Cardoza's
talents and persistence in
single-handedly creating a
full-service
operation.
Cardoza
obtains
dairy
manure from Dixon, a small community adjoining his
vermiculture facility in Davis, west of Sacramento,
California. In addition to the expense of trucking this product
to his own farm, Cardoza periodically visits the dairy farm to
turn the manure, speeding up the pre-composting phase of the
feedstock. Four-foot wide windrows, called "ricks," cover
some 3 acres of his twenty-acre farm. Sprinkler irrigation is
used to spray a fine mist on the unshaded beds where
temperatures frequently hit triple digits in the summer. The
exclusively outdoor vermiculture operation currently has 30
ricks, approximately 200 feet long. "That's over one mile in
length," says Al's son Dan Cardoza, who now manages
Rainbow after Al's recent retirement.
The rows receive about one inch of material every two weeks,
amounting to about 4-5 cubic yards per row. Earthworms
(Eisenia fetida) to be sold are harvested in a trommel
designed and built by Al. Custom-made worm harvesters and
blueprints are available for sale. Harvested earthworms are
67
In Their Own Words
packaged in wax-coated cardboard boxes and shipped by
ground carrier and by air. Cardoza applies the wax to the
interior of the boxes, perforates it with enough holes to allow
ventilation, and applies a red-ink stamped warning: "Alive!
Earthworms. Do not expose to heat or cold." A speciallyblended bedding mix of peat moss, shredded paper and oyster
shell flour is used in packaging earthworms for shipment.
The senior Cardoza has designed a heavy-duty blender for
mixing worm castings with other ingredients to create custom
potting soils for nurseries. He also has designed bagging and
sealing machines which are used for packaging Rainbow
Worm Castings, available in one-quarter and one cubic foot
bags. Cardoza's video thoroughly covers all aspects of his
operation: sprinkler set-up, creation of ricks, feeding,
harvesting worms and castings, making wax-coated boxes,
and shipping procedures including preparation of bedding,
and bagging. Two-day seminars and consultation services are
also available.
Over the years, Rainbow Worm Farm has steadily increased
its product line. In addition to worm castings (sold in bags or
bulk), a blended potting soil mix has been created, using
castings, forest humus, peat moss, sand and leaf mold. Other
soil blends are also available and are sold by the cubic yard.
Custom-built Bagger-Sealer machines produced by Rainbow
allow a single operator to bag and seal 400-500 1-cubic foot
size bags per day. Other equipment offered for sale includes
soil meters, boxes for shipping worms, and supplies for
sprinkler irrigation.
Meeting the increasing market demand for earthworms was
very challenging for Dan Cardoza during the peak spring and
early summer months. The addition of several more rows was
necessary in order to try to keep up with orders. For many
years, Rainbow has shipped worms all over the world.
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Al Cardoza
Compliance with foreign regulations has sometimes meant
that additional measures must be taken to satisfy import and
customs requirements. Israel and Mexico, for example, have
presented unique challenges. And Hawaii, known for its
restrictions pertaining to imported soil and soil organisms, has
within the past 3 years certified Rainbow to export organic
soil products to the islands.
Now that Al is "officially" retired, he has more time for
enjoying leisure activities, although he is still in demand for
seminars and consultation. During his time on the farm, suited
up in blue coveralls, he has granted television interviews at
his site and has also been a participant in a variety of videos
pertaining to the composting industry. This interview was
first published in the February 1988 issue of Casting Call.
Casting Call: The idea of going into the worm business sort
of "simmered" in your thinking for some ten years, while you
worked as a production superintendent in the chemical
industry. What started your interest in vermiculture and what
steps were taken as you began this new undertaking?
Al Cardoza: Well, I was always interested in the soil. I was
a farmer before I was a superintendent. We farmed for 20some odd years. But the farm just wasn't big enough for the
family and the family was large. So I decided to move on,
and worked my way up to superintendent at the chemical
company. Later, I was looking for something else to do and I
went to a seminar. I liked the idea, but there were so many
people in it at the time, and without the knowledge that was
required. So I studied up on it. Finally, when I got tired of the
corporate structure I went into the worm farm. And I've never
been sorry that I've done that--never. Being my own boss
wasn't really the criterion for me getting out of the corporate
structure. Doing something worthwhile and achieving
69
In Their Own Words
something was my main focus. It just worked out that we
were our own boss. But it's making a contribution, more than
anything else. And I feel I have, within the industry. But it
was very difficult for us too, you know. It wasn't all cut and
dried. The wife [Avis] is who carried the load. She was an
office manager and carried the load until we got this thing on
its feet which took a few years. It took us awhile because I
didn't have anyone to "show me the ropes." But eventually we
got it, and now I can save people a whole lot of time. Many
trials and many errors, but you learn from your errors--you'd
better!
CC: Your talent in engineering has been effectively put to
use in the creation of your model worm farm. Sprinkler
systems, special shipping boxes, a soil blender, worm
harvesters, bagging machines--you've designed a lot of
equipment. Naturally, this equipment was designed for your
own operation, but Rainbow custom builds these items for
other growers. What has been the demand for the items you
offer apart from worm sales?
AC: I'm not an engineer, a certified engineer. I'm what they
call a "shade-tree" engineer. I'm able to put metals together
and make them work. [Laughter] That's somewhat of an
engineer but I'm not a "sheepskin" engineer. There's not a
great demand [for the equipment]. But there's enough of it out
there for us to keep our fingers in it, to keep improving the
machinery. And we've made several improvements since
Dan's come aboard because it gives us a little more time. One
more set of hands, you know. I didn't see anything out there, I
didn't see where they [other companies] were doing a good,
clean job of harvesting worms. So, with trial and error we've
come up with a machine that's far faster, that can harvest a lot
more worms than any other machine out there, and have them
cleaner. When you bring them into the shipping room you're
70
Al Cardoza
ready to start packaging. We do several bag machines,
sealers, a year, but mostly we do the harvesters. Ours is
probably the most expensive harvester on the market today.
But I can guarantee that that harvester is going to outlast any
of those others 3 to 1, maybe more. I've got harvesters out
there now that I've never heard from the people. Either
they're not using them [laughter] or they're not having any
trouble with them. It's the only one can change the screens in,
in about 15-20 minutes. The others are all outside skeletons
and it takes them at least a minimum of 4 hours, sometimes
more. And time is money.
CC: You're located in an agricultural setting west of
Sacramento, CA. The temperature gets quite warm
sometimes in the summer and you have been extremely
cautious about shipping, particularly during the hottest times
of the year. In fact, there are probably a number of stories
you can tell about shipping problems. What have you
discovered?
AC: Well first off, when we first started shipping it was a
miserable mess, because we didn't know what we were doing.
We had to do a little research on peat moss, finding that peat
moss differs from one bog to another. So we had to maintain
at least a 5.5 [pH] on the acid level. The other thing that you
have to worry about is the salt. Those two things are the
reasons we use the 2 meters that we use, to make sure that the
acid levels are high enough to keep the worms alive. We ship
in the summertime too and we do lose a few, but I'd say that
95-96% of them all go through without any problems. But we
had to come up with the best type of blend. We found that
paper and peat moss and oyster flour makes a very good
combination for shipping. Probably the biggest amount of
worms we've lost is 20 pounds [at a time]. But we do ship 'em
and do replace them if we lose them. The customer is always
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In Their Own Words
right. We've shipped to Israel, Portugal and Japan and never
had a big loss. At the very beginning we used to ship worms
twice, and it wasn't working, so we had to come up with
something or else we were going to be out of business. We
re-shipped worms 2 and 3 times at the very beginning.
There's no profit in that! Then we came up with this mix and
that was through trial and error. I did learn from a chemist at
the university that there was an acid level in peat that varied.
That's what we started focusing upon and we got the results
that we wanted. We've been using wax-coated cardboard
boxes for 15-18 years.
CC: In establishing your business, you've worn a lot of hats.
Watching your video on how to grow worms can make one
feel exhausted, not only because there's a lot of work
involved, but because you're a hard act to follow. You take
folks from one step to the next, explaining all the factors in
doing things properly. Your two-day seminar packs in a lot of
information too. The result for many people is, after this
intensive training, they decide it's just too much work. How
does that make you feel?
AC: It makes me feel good, because I've saved those people a
lot of money. As I tell people in the seminars, "I would love to
see you come aboard, but you've got to realize what you're
getting yourself into." If someone decides that's too much
work for them, then I've saved them a lot of money. And that's
the whole goal of my presentation. I don't care what kind of
business it is, but by golly if you don't stick to it and pay
attention to your sense, you're going to lose. I wouldn't tell
people they're going to make a small fortune on it, because it's
not true. I've worked at it for 22 years and I never got rich.
I've made a good living. Rich means a millionaire, or I think
it does. But I'm still comfortable and healthy and that's all
that matters. And I don't think you ever "retire." I love the
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business too much to say "Hey, I'm gone, I'm not going to do
any of this." When I come back [from time off] I'm always
working with Dan on new ideas and things that he's thought
about. I don't think that I could ever leave the business
totally.
CC: California's Food and Agriculture Code, Section 23.7
identifies vermiculture and its byproducts as agriculture, and
the California Marketing Act describes products produced
from worms as a commodity. In essence, this exempts worm
growers from regulations that affect composting sites. While
this is good for worm growers, it can lead to abuses which
may impact the future of vermiculture. Do you sense any
threat that California's Integrated Waste Management Board
may restrict vermiculture in the future, because of some who
are taking in organic waste and using vermiculture as a
"smokescreen?"
AC: They're not doing composting, that's the big fallacy of
the whole thing. What they're doing is taking in a tipping fee,
and some of those fees get up around $20/ton. And they're
just piling this stuff up and hoping that someday they'll have
compost. But you have to work material in order to make
compost. They're not doing that. They're just stacking this
stuff out there. And I've seen it time and time again. These
people should be regulated because they're not doing the job
that said they were going to do. But I don't think that will
happen to us. I'm in close relationship with the people at
waste management and they know my operation. They go by
here all the time. They stop in here once in awhile to visit,
because they know we have a clean operation. But as long as
you play by the rules, they're not going to step on you. But if
you go out of line, they have every right to, and it's for the
safety of people too.
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In Their Own Words
CC: Staying with the idea of vermiculture and waste
management, what do you see for the future in the
establishment of large vermicomposting facilities for
municipal-scale organic waste?
AC: I worked with a worm grower for awhile, and he's
probably going to have the largest vermiculture business that I
know of, but it's strictly for digesting [paper] waste. I think
he's got about 20 acres in now. And I don't think anyone's
going to bother him about it because he's doing it right. I
don't remember exactly how many tons he brings in a day, but
he goes 24 hours a day with his trucks, hauling that stuff away
from the paper mill. I really don't know about others in
California. I certainly see a future for vermicomposting
waste. The green waste that they're composting now, they're
not getting the true benefit of composting. It looks good, but
it doesn't have the nutrients that the worm can develop in the
material. By that I mean the worm gives off auxins and
cytokinens and those act as growth promoters, like nitrogen,
but it isn't nitrogen. I learned about this from Herb Lanser. I
honestly believe that these landfills, by sorting these
materials, that there's a lot of material that worms could
digest. They could come up with a product [vermicompost]
and stretch the life of the landfills a lot further. The worms
could reduce 10, 15, perhaps 20% of the material going into
the landfills. I think the thing [large-scale vermicomposting]
has not really exploded yet, and I think it will. But the
problem is, getting enough growers to raise enough worms to
supply these people. Because, my goodness, if they start
going that route, it's going to take many, many tons of
worms. There's an operation in northern California where
they have 800 to 1,000 yards of material and they're
composting it. But these mounds are just humungous. And
they bought [just] 10 pounds of worms! So you tell me. It is
not going to happen! That's one of the things that Waste
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Al Cardoza
Management is looking at. And they really should. These
guys get out into areas where they're not highly visible. But
that's another story. I've talked to people in Kings County, the
officials there. They had a problem with a guy there. They
asked me if 100 pounds of worms would take care of 100 tons
per day. And I said, "Absolutely not! There's no way!" I
think they just closed him down, because they were making a
mess out there in the desert.
CC: There is a great deal of interest in castings these days,
and there are a whole series of questions being asked about
the present and future market. What needs to be done from
agencies like California Compost Quality Council (CCQC),
organic farming groups, and other agencies in establishing the
quality of worm castings?
AC: Well, that's a good question and I really don't know how
to answer that. The quality has to come from the people that
have the worm farms. We can only do here our very best to
get out the best castings that we know how to do. I've seen
castings where they hardly resemble castings--they're very
light. Of course castings are a very dense material and heavy.
I've seen so many of them that do not comply with the true
word "castings." I don't know how...the state is going to have
to regulate that. They've taken samples from here to use it as
a guide for people selling castings. But I haven't heard back
any information on whether or not they're still doing that. But
castings, I think it's [now] in the eyes of the beholder. But I
would like to see a standard. We harvest out castings out of a
row once a year. That way we're assured of getting quality
castings out of the bottom. We take the top off by hand until
we get down to the castings. Then we scoop the castings out
and pile them up. We let them sit there for awhile and if
there's any bits of manure, the worms that are left there will
go through it and clean that up and give us a better quality. It
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In Their Own Words
isn't 100% [castings] but it's as close to it as we can get it. I
would say that they're at least 80% pure. The average farmer
will not regulate himself. They won't do it. It depends on the
pressure they're under as to the quality they're going to put
out. I hate regulations, but there's got to be some kind of
quality control on this stuff. Most all the castings are going to
baggers [soil blenders] who put castings in their mixes.
They're using castings as a sales tool. But some blenders will
buy whole rows with worms and manure left, because it's
cheaper. And that stuff can heat up.
CC: What has been your experience with the international
marketplace? Can you tell us whether the interest has been in
buying worms, castings, or your equipment?
AC: With us here it's been a little bit of all the above. We
have sold the plans for machinery to Australia, Germany and
Portugal. The equipment and the worm end of it is not that
great, as far as we're concerned. We ship maybe 3 or 4 big
shipments a year, at the most, to these different people.
Mexico has become very hot. But some of these people are
buying from growers that are selling for $3 or $4 per lb.
Sometimes they get there, sometimes they don't. There's no
guarantee on them, either. That's the thing we have to put up
with. And those people are just a thorn in our sides, you
know, and pretty soon they go away. But there's always
someone to take their place. We've shipped just about all over
the world at one time or another. As for the plans, the
problem has been that everyone reads plans differently, and
sometimes they don't end up with a machine that's exactly the
same. And then they're disappointed. So then they have to
come back and get a machine built to send over there. It's
happened several times. One guy bought the plans from us in
California and did it successfully. But he paid more in the
long run than if he bought the machine directly from us.
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Al Cardoza
CC: What is the greatest opportunity awaiting vermiculture?
What is its greatest threat?
AC: The opportunity is wide open for someone's that
ambitious and wants to make a living. If they're not afraid to
do a little work, and I say "a little work," but it's quite a bit of
work, they can make it in the worm business, because the
future of the worm business is going to be big, I feel. And it's
going to be wide open for the next 10 years. Here's the way it
works. If you get your name out there first, and you do
quality work, and you do what you say you're going to do,
people are going to come back. Dan's shipping out 100
pounds today to someone who's been buying worms, and they
keep coming back. I don't pretend to have the cheapest price,
but we have quality and we come through with the timing
[service]. The greatest threat to vermiculture? People making
a bad name for it. And that's people not doing the job right,
sloughing off things where they should really pay attention.
That's just detrimental to the business.
CC: You've worked hard in building a business that clearly
demonstrates a pride in quality and value for the dollar. After
all the years of straightening out windrows while sitting on
your tractor, after all the equipment you've designed and built,
after all the seminars you've conducted and thousands of
questions you've answered, and after packaging up all the tons
of worms and castings, what can you say has given you the
greatest sense of enjoyment?
AC: Meeting the people. I enjoy working with people. And
I enjoy helping people do the things that we're doing here.
That's my whole thing in the worm business. I've helped a lot
of people "out" of the business, too. I've had people that have
wanted to get into the business that have had heart surgery.
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In Their Own Words
They're working on borrowed time. I had a fellow in
Washington that wanted to get into it in the worst way. He
came down here and I talked him out of it. It was about a year
later that he wrote me a letter thanking me that it wasn't for
him.
78
Chapter Eight
Dr. Ed Berry
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Dr. Ed Berry has been a scientist with the
United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA) for 32 years. At the National Soil
Tilth Lab in Ames, Iowa, Dr. Berry has
conducted a variety of research projects, published papers,
and has consulted with farmers. Some of his speaking
engagements have included the topic of earthworms in soil
quality and their effect on water movement in soils.
Dr. Berry, although not a taxonomist, can readily identify
most of the common species of earthworms. Samples sent to
his lab from worm growers who do vermicomposting have
usually turned up to be Eisenia fetida, but samples sent by
farmers and extension agents tend to be in the group of
Lumbricus terrestris (nightcrawler), including as many as 810 different species.
Mary Appelhof’s 26-minute video, Wormania! (March, 1995)
used videomicroscopy of live earthworms, both in their
natural habitat and in the laboratory. Microscopic views of
young worms show the rhythmic beating of their five pair of
hearts and there is a captivating sequence in which a baby
worm may be seen hatching from its cocoon. These scenes
were captured in Dr. Berry’s laboratory where Ms. Appelhof
spent about a week conducting research for her project.
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In Their Own Words
Dr. Berry’s interest in earthworms stems from their impact on
agriculture and soil fertility. Farmers have begun to realize
that reduced, or “no-till” production allows earthworm
populations to increase--provided that earthworms are there in
there in the beginning. Questions from farmers to Dr. Berry
include, “How many worms do I need to improve my yield?”
Berry says that this is difficult to demonstrate. Earthworms
improve the hydrology of the soil. “It’s not as easy as putting
a gallon of earthworms in the soil to increase the yield by ten
bushels,” he says. “It’s more the idea that soil and water
quality are improved.”
Some of Dr. Berry’s published research includes the
following:
Berry, E.C. and D.L. Karlen. 1993 Comparison of alternative
farming systems. II. Earthworm population density
and species diversity.
Journal of Alternative
Agriculture. 8:21-26
Alban, D.H. and E.C. Berry. 1994. Effects of earthworm
invasion on morphology, carbon, and nitrogen of a
forest soil. Applied Soil Ecology. 1:242-249
Berry, E.C. 1994. Earthworms and other Fauna in the Soil.
In J.L. Hatfield and B.A. Stewart (ed.) Soil Biology:
Effects on Soil Quality. Lewis Publishers, New York,
NY., 61-90.
Munyankusi, E. and S.C. Gupta, J.F. Moncrief, and E.C.
Berry.
1994.
Earthworm Macropores and
Preferential Transport in a Long-Term Manure
Applied Typic Hapludalf. Journal of Environmental
Quality. 23 (4): 773-784
Parkin, T.B. and E.C. Berry. 1994. Nitrogen Transformations
Associated With Earthworm Casts.
Soil Biol.
Biochem. 26 (9): 1233-1238.
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Dr. Ed Berry
Shapiro, D.I. and G.L. Tylka, E.C. Berry, and L.C. Lewis.
1995. Effects of Earthworms on the Dispersal of
Steinerema spp. Journal of Nematology 27 (1) 21-28.
Berry, E.C. and A.A. Swalla, D. Jordan, and J.K. Radke.
Impact of Freezing and Thawing on the Stability of
Casts Produced by Earthworms. Proceedings of the
International Symposium of Physics, Chemistry and
Ecology of Seasonally Frozen Soil. Special Report.
218-223.
Although now retired from the USDA, Dr. Berry continues to
identify earthworm samples, review papers, consult with
farmers, and make himself available for speaking
engagements. This interview first appeared in the August
1998 issue of Casting Call.
Casting Call: You’ve spent many years with the USDA and
have undoubtedly seen many changes in agriculture as it is
practiced in this country. When did you begin to look at the
connection between earthworms and their impact on soil
fertility?
Ed Berry: I’ve been working specifically with earthworms
for the last 15 years. The real interest in earthworms began
when we began to change our farming practices, specifically,
when we started to reduce our tilling. Of course this leads to
more residue on the surface. Plus, since we’re not tilling the
soil, we begin to form a crust on the surface. The earthworms
are able to, through their tunneling activities and casting
formation, have opened up avenues for the movement of
water and gases down through the soil. It was really when the
change in tillage occurred that we really began to see more
interest in earthworms.
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In Their Own Words
CC: Using the right earthworm for the right application is
important. Eisenia fetida is a surface-dwelling detritivore—
thriving only where there is sufficient organic material. But
for enhancing populations of soil dwelling species, such as
Lumbricus terrestris (nightcrawler) for agriculture, what do
you recommend for farmers?
EB: First of all, you have to consider, where did our
earthworms come from? Most of them are not native North
American earthworms. So, they had to come from someplace.
What this means is the farmer may or may not have
earthworms, depending on whether they were transported to a
specific location, then they’re not gonna be there. My
recommendations to a farmer, are, first of all, modify your
tillage practices. Go more toward no-till or reduced tillage.
This is the primary thing. Of course, if he doesn’t have
earthworms there he should introduce earthworms. We have
to modify the environment so that it’s favorable for
earthworms. This is primarily through reduction in tillage and
increasing organic matter. Leaving the surface with plant
residue—that’s the most important thing. That acts as a food
source as well as modifying temperature and soil moisture.
CC: You’ve investigated certain beneficial nematodes that
have great potential as biological control agents and the effect
earthworms may have in dispersing these more widely
throughout a soil area. Do earthworms provide this and other
benefits to crop production?
EB: Yes they do aid in dispersing nematodes as well as some
of the other microorganisms. A lot of this has to do with
having a tunnel there. A tunnel also has large amount of
nitrogen and microbes associated with this. The other thing,
of course, with nematodes, most of these have to have free
water for their movement. And the earthworms provide this
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Dr. Ed Berry
in their tunnels. You have to keep in mind that there are
several species of nematodes, but we have seen only dispersal
of beneficial nematodes; no one has looked at dispersal of
harmful nematodes. We saw with the nematodes we were
working with, that they passed directly through the earthworm
gut and were not destroyed.
CC: Are you finding that farmers are concerned with the
effects of insecticides, fertilizers (such as anhydrous
ammonia), and pesticides upon earthworms? Other farm
management practices, such as the mechanical action of
plows, may expose earthworms or injure them. Do you see a
willingness to change long-held practices on the part of
farmers?
EB: Yes I do. There is a lot of interest, for example, with
pesticides. I get a lot of calls, asking which pesticide is the
most harmful and which one is the least harmful. And they’re
willing to use those that are least disruptive to the
earthworms’ environment. Most of the farmers are very
interested in conserving their population [of earthworms]. Of
the question about anhydrous ammonia: The earthworm is just
like you and I. If we get anhydrous ammonia on us, it’s going
to burn us; if we get too much of it, it’s going to kill you. It
does the same thing with the earthworm. If we broadcast
anhydrous ammonia, which we do not, but if we did, we’d
have a sterile environment. Normally, the anhydrous is
injected in rows 30-40 inches apart. You’re going to kill
some of the earthworms, but you’re not going to completely
eliminate the population. Many of our test fields have had
anhydrous used in them for years. We really don’t see a
detrimental effect of the anhydrous. Some of the other
fertilizers that have a lot of sulfur or sulfate change the pH.
Earthworms are very sensitive to rapid changes in pH. But
the farmers are very interested in what they’re putting on, and
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In Their Own Words
they’re willing to modify their practices to maintain their
earthworm populations.
CC: The market for organically grown foods has been
steadily increasing and is projected to continue to grow. How
are commercial producers of pesticides, herbicides and
fertilizers handling the concern that consumers and farmers
have about these products?
EB: I’m not sure how to answer that one. I heard on the
radio the other day that Monsanto is getting out of the
chemical business and going more toward biotech. You have
to keep in mind now, that the pesticides we have now, the
newer ones are relatively safe, both from the earthworms’
standpoint as well as our standpoint. Then, as these varieties
are developed that are genetically altered, then pesticides
become less important, at least at this point in time. I’m sure
that in the future that some of our insects are going to become
resistant to modified corn plants. And then we’re going to
have to revert back to something else.
Now where the
genetically altered foods fit into organically grown foods, I’m
not sure. But I know there’s a lot of concern about that.
There are some countries not willing to import our genetically
altered corn.
CC: It has been speculated that the great damage caused by
the Mississippi River overflowing its banks in 1993 due to
excessive rainfall may have been caused in part by farming
practices. The speculation was that had a sufficient number of
earthworms been present in the croplands, water infiltration
earthworm burrows would have absorbed much of the
abundant rainfall, and the resultant damage would have been
mitigated. Is this contention valid?
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Dr. Ed Berry
EB: No. The reason I say that is that any time you dump
large amounts of water on the soil, it has to go someplace.
And I’m not sure that the amount of water we had to come
down in that short of time, that it could get down into ground.
We have the same thing here today. Just the other day we got
about an inch of water in about 20 minutes. You’re just
asking for the impossible. Once this ground gets saturated,
and earthworm tunnels don’t go forever, any excess water is
going to go downhill, that’s all there is to it. Earthworm
tunnels, they’re beneficial, but you have to say under what
conditions. If you say anytime it rains it’s all going to run
down into [earthworms’] tunnels, well it’s not. Could it have
lessened some of that flooding? Probably so. But could have
it prevented it? No. You’re just asking the impossible.
CC: Your chapter, “Earthworms and other Fauna in the Soil”
(1994) reviews a good deal of the scientific literature and
closes with a dozen questions posed for further research.
Some of these questions have been discussed above. Since
writing that chapter, you must have thought of still more
questions. In what areas would you like to see research
conducted?
EB: There are several areas. I think the biggest question we
have is, Why are earthworms in some locations and they’re
not in others? We can take single factors and show that
they’re related to monitoring or changing or enhancing or
whatever you want to call it—earthworm populations—but
we have to look at this thing holistically, and ask, how do all
these thing interact? We’re beginning to do this, but up until
this point we’ve been taking a single factor approach and tried
to relate this. I think this is one of our challenges right now is
that we need to look at these things as a system, over a long
period of time. Again, in previous research, we’ve looked at
the effect of earthworms in a small plot for a year or two.
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In Their Own Words
Well, what about ten years down the road, or twenty years?
This is one area we need to concentrate on. The other is, there
are a lot of earthworms out there, different species of
earthworms, but there aren’t many taxonomists that can
identify these things. So we need to concentrate on getting
more taxonomists and getting more surveys, and looking at all
of these interactions, trying to put these into a long-range
system, so that we can really see the value of earthworms.
[As far as the USDA is concerned] the interest is there, but
one of the problems is that there are very few classes in our
colleges that teach you anything about earthworms. What one
knows about earthworms, you get through reading, talking,
speaking, and doing experiments. Right now, I only know
about 2 or 3 other people within the federal government who
work specifically with earthworms. At one time I was the
only biologist within the federal government who was
working with earthworms. There are other people who look
at the effect of earthworms on soils, mostly the tunnels and
their effects.
CC: Uday Bhawalkar of Pune, India has written a work
called Vermiculture Ecotechnology. He is an avid proponent
of anecic or soil-dwelling earthworms, particularly Pheretima
elongata.
However, epigeic (litter-dwelling) redworms,
Bhawalkar contends, are “pests” in the same category as
cockroaches, ants, rats, flies and mosquitoes. “Redworms
assimilate about 80% of the food nutrients," he says, so “their
excreta (that is, vermicompost) therefore contains 80% less
nutrients as compared to the organics fed to the redworms.”
He claims anecic earthworms, on the other hand, produce
castings of about 5 times their body weight per day. In short,
Bhawalkar’s contention is that vermicomposting by redworms
is far less efficient than his “vermiculture ecotechnology”
where organic residues and rock dust are applied near the root
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Dr. Ed Berry
zone of plants and trees (the root zone enhances earthworm
activity). How would you answer these claims?
EB: Well, I would not disagree with him, but I guess where I
would have my problem is that we’re leaving this very wide
open. Are we talking about agricultural situations, are we
talking about home gardens? Are we talking about nutrients?
Soil structure? If we just want to get rid of residue… If you
look at fertilizer values of castings, it’s pretty low. But, when
you use this material out there, something else is going on.
You’re altering soil structure. You’ve got a lot of carbon in
there, a lot of nitrogen, you move gases and water; so there’s a
whole lot going on in this system; and not just providing
fertilizer, if you will. If you’re talking about just converting
waste into something to get rid of the waste, you cannot beat
Eisenia fetida, because of its reproductive capabilities. It’s
really a reproductive machine. But it gets back to, are we
talking about a waste problem or are we talking about plant
production. And I think there is a big difference in there. I
don’t look at the materials coming from a vermicomposting
system as a very good soil amendment. That’s not saying a
whole lot, but there are other things that are a whole lot better.
There are more efficient ways of increasing plant yield than
using compost. I dislike hearing people say, Well we can
compost this material with earthworms and increase our yields
by 30 bushels, or whatever. I think you’re on shaky ground
and I think this gives earthworms a bad name.
CC: Your study of nitrogen transformations associated with
earthworm casts stated that earthworm casts are enriched in
mineral nitrogen. As a soil amendment, earthworm castings
do not have impressively high N-P-K values, mostly in the
neighborhood of 1-1-1. Yet Dr. Clive Edwards and others are
impressed with the results of plant growth trials in which
vermicompost comprises 10% or less of a plant growth
87
In Their Own Words
medium. He speculates that this may be due to increased
microbiological activity. What are your thoughts about worm
castings and soil fertility?
EB: I agree with him 100%. I have no problem with that at
all. That N-P-K value that is given there, I agree with that.
One of the problems that we have is that we can show these
increases in laboratory conditions. Now when we go out into
the real world and you don’t see that many increases, (you see
some), but, you have to ask the question then, Would you see
those yield increases without the earthworms being there, just
from the compost material, or do you need the worms there at
the same time? Because if the worms are there at the same
time, then what you’re doing is increasing water and air
movement, and so forth. So we have to keep that separated.
Now there are definitely increases shown in the laboratory,
due to using earthworm compost. I expect it’s due to the
microbial activity, the carbon, the nitrogen, etc. associated
with that casting material. You’ve got a material that, when
you use that compost, you decrease bulk density, if you will,
this improves soil conditions. And all this is going to trigger
into increasing yields. And I think there’s more to it, and a lot
of it we don’t know. But there’s more to it than just the
fertility, the N-P-K. I expect Edwards comments about the
microbes are completely right.
CC: There seems to be a good deal of interest in the subject
of earthworms in waste management and earthworms as
producers of vermicomposts as an aid to soil fertility. Would
you say there is a similar or growing interest in the role of
earthworms” (At the risk of sounding like the question, “Will
a gallon of earthworms increase a crop by 10 bushes”), Is it
possible to raise or harvest vast quantities of soil-dwelling
earthworms in order to inoculate an agricultural field to
increase its productivity?
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Dr. Ed Berry
EB: On a small scale, we’re doing some of that now. Kevin
Butt in England has developed ways of producing
nightcrawlers and putting these out into the field. He’s doing
that, but is it economical to do that? That’s going to be the
big question. Satchell in New Zealand took little mats, like
turf, and put earthworms out in the field and increased
populations. But I’m not sure we’re at that point, because the
economics have to be there. I think before we try to do that, I
guess what I’d like to see us do is look more at native species,
and try to determine what they’re doing and how we can
introduce them into our systems. And this goes back to our
need for taxonomists. Once we know what’s there, we can
learn about their biology and how they can fit into our
systems. I had rather these native earthworms and work with
them than work with introduced earthworms. We can go out
here and dump earthworms out there, but if we don’t consider
survival and reproduction, we’re not doing very much. Again,
it goes back to a system. In most of these situations, if you
change the environment, meaning tillage systems and all
things associated with this, given time, you’re going to have
earthworms. You may not have nightcrawlers, and people get
hung up on nightcrawlers, like that’s the only worm. Well, I
disagree with that 100%. There are some 6 or 8 different
species out there, and they perform different tasks. Really
what you need is a system of worms out there, a variety of
species. You don’t need just one type of worm. Each one has
a different niche, and this is what we’re looking for.
89
Chapter Nine
Mario Travalini
American Resource Recovery
American Resource Recovery (ARR) is
located in Vernalis, California, ideally situated
along Interstate 5 in California’s agriculturally
rich San Joaquin Valley, about 90 miles south
of Sacramento. Part of its 320 acres consists
of two paved airplane landing strips covering
75 acres, a remnant of the military air base once located there,
providing an added benefit for its waste management
operations. Another 70 acres is used for vermicomposting.
Non-hazardous commercial wastes (organic residues) totaling
more than 75,000 tons are processed by earthworms annually.
Feedstocks include short fibers (paper pulp) generated from
recycling cardboard, along with varying amounts of tomato
waste, green waste, and manure. The vermiculture operation
has been in operation since 1993, as an earthworm inventory
was steadily built. Today ARR has an estimated 500,000
pounds of earthworms on its site that continue to multiply
within 3-foot-wide outdoor windrows, some of which stretch
as far as one-quarter mile in length.
In 1997, ARR began processing and selling earthworm
castings. During its busiest season, the facility has shipped up
to 100 tons of vermicompost per week. In the spring of 1998,
ARR began offering earthworms for sale, harvesting,
packaging and shipping them throughout the U.S. Recently
they have begun shipping earthworms outside the U.S.
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Mario Travalini
ARR is the largest vermicomposting site on the West Coast
and may very likely be the largest vermicomposting facility in
North America. Owner Jim Davis and Organics Division
Manager Mario Travalini are dedicated in their objective of
demonstrating that large-scale commercial vermicomposting
is economically viable, environmentally useful, and beneficial
in producing a high-grade soil amendment.
Mario Travalini graciously spent a few hours with us, talking
about his experiences in the past and his hopes for the future.
His boundless energy and enthusiasm for vermicomposting go
a long way toward accounting for the success that ARR has
enjoyed.
Future leadership in the burgeoning
vermicomposting industry will emanate from visionaries such
as Travalini and Davis as they “raise the bar” a little higher
for the rest of us. This interview was featured in the April
1999 issue of Casting Call.
Casting Call: Tell about the various aspects of ARR. What
are you doing in the area of organics recovery?
Mario Travalini: ARR started up about a year-and-a-half
ago by Jim Davis and Steve Anderson. Initially they began by
processing various non-hazardous waste streams--whether
through drying, milling, crushing, mixing, and blending--and
hoped to come up with a way to sell the product on the back
end. Soda ash, for example, is generated in great quantities by
IBM. It can be made into kitty litter. After several months
Anderson left and Jim Davis approached me about a position
with the company. I came on in the winter of ’97-98. We
started getting into soil amendments, taking in mushroom
compost, composted greens, and blending these with worm
castings. We began talking to some landscapers but we really
didn’t know what we were doing, or what we had, or other
aspects such as costs for trucking. We hit our heads a lot. As
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In Their Own Words
time went on we had to ask, “What are we doing here?” Then
I got a hold of a mill operator who generates redwood
sawdust. This material is slow in decomposing and that’s
why a lot of formulators in soil blending like to use this
product. This enabled us to step up to another level in our
operations and generate some better income. I became the
marketer and coordinator and manager. I had to go out and
get on a tractor and figure it out. Then I would train the
people. We started with one idea and as time is going on
we’re starting to understand what we have and what are the
realities in trying to make a profit in the recycling industry.
You don’t want to just go out there to keep yourself busy. We
analyze waste streams, transportation, processing and what’s
the end use. Jim Davis had the worm castings production
going a few years before I got there. He was also taking in
tomato pomace. I was able to start marketing the castings and
establish some relationships there. Sometimes we get a tip
fee, sometimes we take material free, and sometimes we pay
for it, such as the redwood sawdust.
CC: How did it come about that the decision was made to
use earthworms to vermicompost cardboard sludge?
MT: Jim had been taking in the cardboard, drying it, and
selling it in two different fashions. Some he’d sell to “cogen” plants to be burned to produce energy. He’d also dry
some of it and sell it for cattle bedding. Substitutions are
often made in these markets depending upon price, so that if
rice hulls are cheap, that is what they’ll use. This [cardboard]
was just one of those commodities that happened to have a
window of opportunity where he’d have a market for it. But
when the price of oil came down, the co-gen plants shut down
and the markets for cattle bedding were too volatile. Yet the
cardboard kept coming in and Jim had to figure something
out. I don’t know how he got into the earthworms, but he
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Mario Travalini
started doing some minor test plots and had Al Cardoza do
some consulting. At any rate, Jim had to get creative fast, and
he found that the earthworms worked well managing this
waste stream. He put in something like $75,000 in equipment
and irrigation and basically used the tools he had available,
such as spreader trucks, loaders and other equipment. The
property is next to the Delta Mendota canal and water usage is
measured by the acre-foot. Feed and water are very
important. We’re harvesting about three-quarters of a pound
to one pound of earthworms per lineal foot of windrows. The
rows aren’t real wide, measuring in between a wheel well. If
you take a stick to it, they measure about 3 feet from center to
center and are about 12 inches high. As soon as the row hits
the differential in the rear end of the loader, that’s about as
high as you can go. When we put rows on a hard surface it
works out much better. The rows can be built higher, the
worms don’t run out of feed, and the moisture stays in longer.
These beds can get up to three feet high. But when the 12inch high beds run out of feed, the worms leave or die. We
have six cells and I’d like to take one of those cells and come
up with some different farming techniques. We’d have to get
some side spreaders and feed from the side. Unfortunately,
we are crunched for time and have a lot going on.
CC: Can you describe the process used in vermicomposting
cardboard sludge?
MT: We obtain up to 300 tons per day of the sludge [short
fibers] from a cardboard recycling plant. It is a 24-hour, 7day-a-week account that we manage. The material is ready to
go when it gets here; we just load it on a spreader truck and go
to town laying it out. We can apply about 8 inches on the
rows at a time. It comes in fluffy and wet. The worms begin
eating the material and the material eventually settles down.
We might feed four or five times a year, maybe more often in
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In Their Own Words
the summer. We can’t get the trucks out there in the winter,
so we’ll feed real big just before winter. We do mix other
waste streams in there occasionally; sometimes if leaves are
available from some municipality we’ll mix that with the
paper. This can be a problem in harvesting, though, as the
leaves don’t have time to thoroughly decompose. Once we’ve
harvested for earthworms we’ll stop feeding the area where
we want to harvest for castings. At this point any remaining
worms will migrate from the area or decompose within the
rows. When we harvest a cell, which might be about 5,000
yards, we’ll bring it to the hard surface and leave it in that
state. Then we’ll screen
upon orders. Let’s say
somebody orders three
loads, we’ll have it ready
because we always have
at least 10 loads in
inventory at all times.
When we start getting
down we’ll schedule to
screen worm castings for
three or four days. We’ll produce perhaps 150 to 200 tons of
worm castings during that period. On the average, each of the
six cells is roughly 1,000 feet long containing about 75 rows,
although some have different shapes. We’ll get to the point
where the trucks can’t feed anymore, probably to a height of
around fourteen inches. Then we’ll just harvest that cell. We
estimate that if we bring in about 100 tons of material at 75%
moisture content, we’ll produce about 25 tons of castings. It’s
a good material to work with, but plastics can be a real
hindrance. That’s why we have a 3-way screening process
and screen to 1/8 inch. When we provide a product to the
consumer, they want to see a nice, clean product.
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Mario Travalini
CC: It gets very warm in Vernalis in the summer. What are
some of the problems you’ve faced and how have you solved
them?
MT: In the summer months we try to start early in the
morning and may only be able to work until 11 a.m., and
perhaps not even that late if the temperature is going to be
110° that day. We’ll have a crew of three to four guys
harvesting. We have a diesel-run refrigeration unit in a trailer
we use for packaging. We can get that place cooled to 55° in
15 minutes on a 100° day—it’s nice! Everyone wants to do
the worms then! Sometimes it’ll be 90° out there at 9:30 in
the morning. There’s no shade available. Sometimes we’ll
start harvesting at four o’clock in the morning under artificial
lights. I’m out there too! It can be miserable later in the day!
That’s why we want to get an automated program installed—
perhaps a blade pulled by a tractor that would feed onto a belt
that goes into a tumbler [trommel]. We’d really like to do that
because it’s very physical out there. We have gotten to the
point where we have to delay filling certain orders because of
the heat or cold. At first we were very excited to ship worms,
but we found out that we had to start writing our own rules. I
think our system is a lot better now too. The peat moss [for
bedding] is refrigerated; we drop them off at the last minute;
we can drive them to the shipper at 5:00 instead of doing
things at the convenience of the shipper. Sometimes we have
to say to our customers, “we recommend that you do this at
another time.” I think they’re all pretty understanding about
it. Cold weather can be a problem too. I’ve got guys that are
sitting on orders right now, just waiting for it to warm up. We
just don’t want to risk it. Unfortunately the [worm] farmer
bears most of the risk. Basically we have to say, “If it gets to
be 95° and up, we don’t ship. If you have to go elsewhere,
that’s fine.” But we have become better at controlling aspects
of our operation to minimize our risk.
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In Their Own Words
CC: You’ve begun shipping earthworms outside the U.S.
How’s that been going?
MT: Actually, it’s been going excellent! But it’s a new area
for us. We just shipped an order to Amsterdam in Holland the
other day. We’re getting a lot of inquiries about shipping to
other countries and they are very big! Some of these
countries are trying to manage their renewable resources. It’s
an enormous opportunity. In one case a man from Southeast
Asia has a plan to create jobs for his countrymen in
vermicomposting. There, earthworms can also be used as a
protein source for animals. This will allow the people to
become more self-sufficient and less dependent on
importation of grain and other products.
CC: In your experience, what is the market like for
earthworm castings?
MT: It’s an expensive product and it’s a heavy product. So
for people in the soil amendments business, the landscapers
and others, it makes no sense economically for them. We’ve
had all of our success with the bagging formulators. The
reason is, you’re paying $2.00-$3.00 per cubic foot for some
potting soil; well there’s 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard, so three
times 27 is $81 per cubic yard on the retail market. There’s
more profit in the retail market. It’s also trendy. It’s a new
marketing thing they want to put on the bags. But it does
have a lot of value. If we had some more marketing people
out there, it would help spread the word. I’ve been giving
product away to some of these growers. I just want to get it
out there. I’ve told them, “Hey, I will bring it to you!” There
are a lot of vegetable starter companies—they grow the plugs.
A big one went up right around the corner from us. I’m going
to bring them a load of worm castings. There’s also a new
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Mario Travalini
vineyard that I’m giving some worm castings to and I’ve got a
new nursery that moved into the area; I’m going to give him a
blend. We’re going to mix 15% worm castings with some
redwood sawdust and some sand and some other things. But
I’m really trying to get it into the hands of the consumer,
trying to prove its value. It’s an infant market and an
education process is involved. I’ll do whatever it takes to get
the product into people’s hands. We’ve had some success.
We’ve sold up to 100 tons per week during the peak season,
but that peak season isn’t long enough in our opinion.
CC: Some California vermicomposting sites have attracted
negative attention from state and local regulators, mostly due
to poor management practices. Are regulatory agencies such
as California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB)
doing enough or too much to regulate the state’s
vermicomposting industry?
MT: Well, I have a limited knowledge of the history of the
unfortunate things that have happened. It’s my personal belief
that regulations have value, but to over-regulate puts up
barriers. I can see how we’re getting to the point where
something needs to be done to help professionalize what
we’re doing here. I think that might actually help us be
recognized as somebody that’s real out there. There are so
many smaller operators that are doing things from the seat of
their pants or with limited resources. So I can see how things
have gotten out of hand in the past. If I look at it as, “What’s
it going to do to the industry?” I think it might actually help
bring some seriousness to the industry.
They’re the
“Integrated Waste Management Board.” So they’re focusing
on waste, not hobby gardeners, not little guys that want to
improve their garden, not even worm growers. They’re
focusing on waste. We try to show through our consistency
that we’re good operators. We really value our relationships
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In Their Own Words
with the county and state agencies. We give them free worms
when they need them. We do a lot of work with the schools
and I’ve spoken to a number of schools. We’ll just continue
going about doing our business until, I mean, how many years
is it going to take for these guys to say, “Wait a second; it is
working.” The nice thing that we’ve got right now is that we
have the 300,000 to 500,000 workers out there managing this
waste. But it takes some time to get to that point. I don’t
know whether many people could realistically do that without
having some other kind of business; that’s something that
takes time. It’s like a farm, like any other farm. You’d better
be able to pick the walnuts off these trees while you’re
planting your new trees. Otherwise, it’s a period of time with
not much income.
CC:
The recent New Horizons in Vermicomposting
Workshop was held in Stockton and the tour site was your
facility. What observations do you have of that event?
MT: Oh, I thought it was a good location and, in terms of
geographic location I
thought it was pretty well
centrally located. And
the way it was designed
around the BioCycle
[conference
in
San
Francisco the following
days], I thought it was
real
advantageous,
because a lot of people
went on to the BioCycle conference. So it was a nice little
stepping stone for that. The turn out was very impressive. I
don’t think any of us thought that it would turn out that way.
I think it had to do with speakers. It was easy to sell, “Come
and see Clive Edwards speak,” and Mary Appelhof. These
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Mario Travalini
are the people that are writing the books that people are
reading, and they wanted to hear them speak. I thought that
the geographic location was real good—Sacramento,
Stockton—any of those central valley towns is just ideal. The
cost was reasonable for most people. Transportation was
reasonable for most people. There must have been 40 or 50
cars that showed up at our facility. And it was neat to see the
enthusiasm of all the participants there. There was genuine
and sincere interest. I thought it was an excellent, excellent
event.
CC: What is in the future for the vermicomposting industry
in California and the U.S.?
MT: Well, I think that it’s like anything else; it’s up to us,
really, it’s up to the worm farmers to decide where to go. I
think that the opportunities are wide open. You can take any
small plant that’s producing some kind of a waste stream and,
if it’s organic, there’s no reason why you can’t become the
manager of that supply of organics on a recycling basis. As an
example, there are these little microbreweries; they’re
producing a waste stream and they’re paying to get rid of it,
most likely. Why couldn’t you propose to them, “Here, I’ll
immediately save you $10 per ton to take your waste. So
you’re already going to start winning. But the good news is
that you’re going to continue to win because it’s a recyclingbased deal. You get included on the plaque that says—soand-so recycles here—there’s a corporate image—little things
like that.” But if you can focus in, right off the bat on saving
them some money, money talks. You don’t need a lot of
equipment to manage a nice little consistent waste stream.
You just have to get creative—they’re out there—these little
produce shops, all kinds of little organic, consistent waste
streams, juicers, little canners, processing plants. I would feel
totally comfortable going out to secure accounts in this
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In Their Own Words
manner, even without a large facility. Because then you are
getting a little bit of a tip fee. And that helps pay for the
equipment and the labor—you need that. I see a bright future
for those who are willing to work at it. If you think that
you’re going to put your name and number in the phone book
and expect your phone to ring—I know the industry is not in
that stage and never will be in that stage, unless we drive it
forward. So really it’s, “How bad do you want it?” I
personally, think that the opportunity is out there. I really do.
CC: What plans and goals do you have for ARR and its
efforts in vermicomposting?
MT: Well the plans are to attempt to bring in more organic
residues of any kind. We’d like to start working with some
more waste streams. We’d like to improve our wormharvesting program and be a little more efficient. The worms
and castings are our sellable items. We’d like to start
experimenting with different farming techniques. So, really,
it comes down to different farming techniques, different
harvesting methods, and different feedstocks. The good news
is that we’ve got our workers. Now it’s a matter of finding
the most efficient way of utilizing those workers. We’ve
created a small business as processors. It’s a matter of going
out there and finding better ways, cheaper ways, higher
margins on various products, and things like that. We’re
really trying to get the worm castings into the hands of the
potential end-users—nurseries, even high-end landscape
jobs—where people aren’t afraid of spending $30 a yard for a
nice blend that’s got some redwood, some composted greens,
and some worm castings. We’d like to incorporate that in the
potting soil market and the wholesale nursery market. We’re
going to continue to give some product away to see what
happens. We won’t know until we get out there and do it.
But we’re committed to doing it and having the professional
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Mario Travalini
growers say, “You know what, this stuff works!” And I think
once that happens, it’s going to be wide open!
101
Chapter Ten
Dr. Clive Edwards
Ohio State University
Dr. Clive Edwards is the world’s leading
authority on vermicomposting and the use of
earthworms in organic waste management.
Born Clive Arthur Edwards, he attended
Bristol University in the U.K. where he
earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in Zoology. In
1957 Wisconsin University conferred upon Edwards the PhD
in Entomology. Throughout most of the 1950s, Edwards
served as a Government Entomologist. From 1960-66 he was
Principal Scientific Officer at the Rothamsted Experimental
Station in the U.K., later to return as Senior Principal
Scientific Officer from 1982-85. There, under his leadership,
nearly 50 scientists, including biologists, agricultural
engineers, economists, and representatives of a range of
commercial enterprises created field-scale practical methods
for disposing of poultry, pig and cattle wastes in an
interdisciplinary research program. “These studies,” writes
Dr. Edwards, “have demonstrated the very considerable
economic potential of using earthworms to convert a wide
range of organic wastes into valuable and efficient plant
growth media.”
In 1985, Dr. Edwards was invited to The Ohio State
University where he has since served as Professor of
Entomology.
102
Dr. Clive Edwards
Dr. Edwards’ principal areas of research include the
following:
Soil ecology and environmental research;
functioning of agroecosystems, effects of agricultural
practices (pesticides, fertilizers, cultivations, rotations) on soil
biota; breakdown of organic matter in soil; earthworm biology
and ecology; and vermiculture.
Awards conferred upon Dr. Edwards since the 1970s are
almost too numerous to mention. Universities and scientific
societies in Europe and the U.S. have awarded Dr. Edwards
various medals, Presidential Citations, and awards for
distinguished accomplishment. Since 1985, Dr. Edwards’
projects have received more than $5,270,000 in grant funding.
His international consultancies include the countries of India,
Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt,
Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Colombia, Mexico, and most
English-speaking South Pacific island groups, including the
Philippines. He has been an organizer or co-organizer of
eleven international conferences and a highly sought-after
speaker, having been invited to symposia around the world.
Dr. Edwards is author of more than 302 scientific papers,
including 21 books. In his 3rd ed. of Biology and Ecology of
Earthworms (1996), the seventy-page bibliography listing
nearly 1500 scientific references cites 58 of his papers, dozens
more than any other researcher. It has been only in the last
third of the twentieth century that interest and research in
earthworm ecology has peaked. Much of this research has
been conducted and summarized by Edwards and brought
together in various compilations he has edited. One such
volume, Earthworms in Waste and Environmental
Management (1988), offers 35 papers on such subjects as
processing of animal and human wastes by earthworms,
engineering waste management by earthworms, earthworms
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In Their Own Words
as animal feed, earthworms in production of plant growth
media, earthworms in soil improvement, and earthworms as
indicators of environmental contamination.
In July 1994, Dr. Edwards helped organize the Fifth
International Symposium on Earthworm Ecology, held in
Columbus, Ohio. More than 220 scientists from 38 countries
attended this symposium and heard 165 research
presentations. Edwards oversaw the publication of these
presentations in a special volume of the journal Soil Biology
and Biochemistry.
The sixteen leading papers by
distinguished scientists were separately edited by Edwards
and published as Earthworm Ecology (1998). His paper, “The
Use of Earthworms in the Breakdown and Management of
Organic Wastes,” provides a comprehensive summary of the
state of our knowledge about vermicomposting. Here he
acknowledges the pioneering work of Roy Hartenstein who, at
SUNY in Syracuse in the late 1970s, conducted research in
the use of earthworms to manage sewage sludge. The
earthworm Eisenia fetida, in Hartenstein’s research, and that
of Dr. Edwards, seems to be one of the best-suited species for
processing organic wastes due to its resilience, among other
characteristics. Yet Dr. Edwards would be quick to point out
that there are at least a half dozen or so earthworm species
that also have been found suitable for this task.
The scope of the subject “earthworms in waste management,”
is best divided into smaller categories. Our interview with Dr.
Edwards sought to cover many of the principal issues in this
area.
The topics we covered included the following:
Commercial aspects of vermicomposting; the current status of
vermicomposting in organic waste management; the
“Continuous Flow Reactor;” the effects of vermicompost
upon soil fertility; international efforts in vermicomposting;
and future projects planned. This interview was first
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Dr. Clive Edwards
published in two parts, appearing in the June 1999 and August
1999 issues of Casting Call.
Some of Dr. Edwards’ publications include:
Edwards, C.A. and Burrows, I. 1988. The potential of
earthworm composts as plant growth media. In:
Earthworms
in
Waste
and
Environmental
Management S.P.B. Academic Publ. Co., The Hague,
Netherlands, 211-220.
Edwards, C.A. and Neuhauser, E.H. 1989.
Earthworms in Waste and Environmental Management.
S.P.B. Academic Publ. Co., The
Hague, Netherlands, 391 pp.
Edwards, C.A., Bohlen, P.J., Linden, D. and Subler, S. 1995.
Earthworms in agroecosystems. In: Earthworm
Ecology and Biogeography in North America. Ed. P.
Hendrix. Lewis & Co., Michigan, 185-213
Edwards, C.A. and Bohlen, P.J. 1996. Biology and Ecology
of Earthworms. (3rd Edition), Chapman & Hall,
London, 426 pp.
Edwards, C.A., ed. 1998. Earthworm Ecology. St. Lucie
Press, Boca Raton, Florida, 389 pp.
Casting Call: Perhaps you might provide some insight into
your early interest in earthworms. In the early 1970s
Encyclopedia Britannica changed and expanded its format,
publishing your article, “Soil Organism,” which surveyed the
rich biological diversity found in living soil. Yet in the same
30-volume set, only a very brief description of earthworms
was published, suggesting that popular (if not scientific)
interest in earthworms was not then what it is today. At that
time you were cited in EB as author of Principles of
Agricultural Entomology while holding the position of
Principal Scientific Officer at Rothamsted Experimental
105
In Their Own Words
Station. Your earliest published papers on earthworms (in the
1960s) concerned effects of pesticides, herbicides and
insecticides on these and other soil fauna. Around this time
(1972) your text Biology of Earthworms, co-authored with
J.R. Lofty, was published. Now, more than a quarter century
later, many would consider you the world’s leading authority
on earthworm biology and ecology. What factors led you to
begin concentrating upon earthworms? Why, as a soil
ecologist, and considering the tens of thousands of soil
organisms that are on this planet, have you chosen to focus so
much of your attention upon the role of earthworms?
Dr. Clive A. Edwards: There are a number of reasons.
Most of my work when I was in the U.K. involved what
agricultural practice did to soil ecosystems and the animals
that live in them and what the animals that live in soil
ecosystems do for agriculture. Those were the main themes.
But in all that period when I was working at Rothamsted, it
became very obvious that earthworms played a key role in
agroecosystems. In fact, I’d only been there a month when I
had a request, Could I supply a million earthworms a month?
This was from North America, so there was interest way back
then; that was in the ‘sixties. I wrote the first version of the
book [Biology of Earthworms, 1972] mainly because I was
pressured to do it by various people, not because earthworms
were my main enthusiasm at the time. In other words, there
was such a demand, and there hadn’t been a book on
earthworms since Charles Darwin, so in the end, I agreed to
do it. And we wrote it in fairly short order. Writing the book
was meeting the pressure, rather than it being my main
personal focus. My personal focus was much more on
microarthropods than on earthworms, originally, but this
changed.
In the U.S., it’s been moved over because
earthworm research has been where the funding opportunities
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Dr. Clive Edwards
have been and we’ve had some very significant funding
related to earthworms.
CC: So none of this relates to any interest as a child, perhaps
in playing with earthworms or something like that? You don’t
find them particularly more fascinating than other creatures in
the soil?
CAE: No [special childhood interest], none at all. No, I find
some of the other soil creatures equally, if not more
fascinating. It’s just that, over the years, I’ve become
convinced that earthworms play a much more important role
than all the other of the organisms together, apart from
microbes. Basically, my education and training came through
soil ecology. But my doctorate work was on pesticides and
soil and not on organisms at all. It was on the persistence of
pesticides. From there we moved to what pesticides did to
soil systems, and then on to the soil fauna in general. So I
came from the toxicology route rather than the pure scientist,
initially.
CC:
Your many years of research at Rothamsted
Experimental Station in the U.K. seemed to have helped
solidify your belief that there is commercial potential in
utilizing earthworms in organic waste management. In spite
of the fact that you are a prolific research scientist and
author/editor of so many significant publications, it seems that
you have a desire to see earthworm technology actually
implemented to the point where it becomes indisputably
proven (not just scientifically ‘proven’ in research journals,
but
in
profit-making
commercial
ventures)
that
vermicomposting is economically viable as well as
environmentally useful.
Doesn’t this interest in the
commercial aspects of earthworm research set you apart from
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In Their Own Words
some of your more “pure research-minded” colleagues who
may recoil from such mundane contact?
CAE:
Not really.
It just happened when the
vermicomposting project came up, it was funded by the
British Ministry of Agriculture. It was a time when they were
interested in getting their research into commercial projects.
For quite a long time, actually about three or four years, we
were pressured to interact strongly with a commercial
organization. That was before I came here. I guess that left
its impact. But nevertheless, I’m still basically focused in the
pure science. It’s nice if you do something which you can see
actually successful commercially.
CC: But you do respond to, more or less, the “pull” of those
commercial aspects when people ask you these questions, or
when you consult on commercial projects, isn’t that true?
CAE: Well, you don’t have a choice really. What do you say
when somebody rings you up? I’m employed to be in
education and research but also the service industry. My
official appointment says I can spend 20% of my time
consulting, if I wish to. But I’m employed by the state and
the federal government to respond to questions from the
public.
CC: As you mentioned when you spoke at the New Horizons
in Vermicomposting Workshop in Stockton, CA on March 6,
1999, the presence of economists and accountants at
Rothamsted pushed the scientists and engineers to pay strict
attention to details perhaps otherwise overlooked. But the
eventual commercialization of this vermicomposting
technology was later followed by the demise of one of its
leading ventures, British Earthworm Technology (BET).
From your experience, what have been the factors involved in
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Dr. Clive Edwards
the failure of vermicomposting ventures, when “on paper”
everything should “pencil out” just fine?
CAE: I think there are two factors to that. One is, and it goes
right across the board from all the enterprises I’ve seen, lack
of capital. Most people go into projects with a few thousand
dollars and think they’re going to change the world. And
that’s not feasible. That’s exactly what happened to British
Earthworm Technology who employed fourteen employees on
limited capital, so they soon ran out of money. So there was
lack of capital and that was linked with poor management.
They never seemed to get their act together in terms of getting
the product at the same time they created a market. They
created a market at a time when they didn’t have much
product, and when they had a lot of product the market had
lost interest. So it was bad management, basically. But I
don’t know what happened, because the last time I had any
contact with them [BET] was in 1987 or 1988. At that time
they were still functioning and were supposedly making a
reasonable profit. But I don’t know what happened to them
after that point. Everybody seems to be asking me for the
same thing. There have been a considerable number of people
who have phoned me asking me about vermiculture. They
want to know all the answers, and they want everything.
[But] at the end of the day, they don’t want to spend any
money. I tend to advise them and finally get tired in the end.
You know they’re not going to do anything. They can see a
great big fortune out there, but don’t have any money and
don’t seem to be able to convince any investors, either. That
is a major reason I agreed to edit a Manual on
Vermicomposting for BioCycle.
CC:
The vermicomposting technology developed at
Rothamsted, often called “The Continuous Flow Reactor,” has
been in use on both coasts of the U.S., and some “mini
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In Their Own Words
reactors” have been built at Ohio State University. In your
paper, “The Use of Earthworms in the Breakdown and
Management of Organic Wastes” (Earthworm Ecology,
1998), you commented that “Such automated continuousprocessing reactors have been operated successfully for as
long as two years, with no problems and excellent efficiency.”
Yet, other than three U.S. locations (Oregon, Ohio, North
Carolina) the technology hasn’t seemed to spread very quickly
in the past two decades. The research, the technology and the
experience all seem to add up to more than ample proof that
this system works. How do you account for the fact that as a
waste management tool, vermicomposting organic residuals
appears to lag far behind thermophilic composting and that
“the continuous flow” system has not yet been hailed as the
answer to organic waste management?
CAE: Well, the answer is pretty simple, really. People think
that if they can look at Dan Holcombe’s reactor and make a
few notes and take a picture, they can go home and build one
and it’ll work. It won’t. Basically, the whole system is
predicated on knowledge and excellent management. I’ve not
met anybody who really manages it as it should be. The data
that we have were from twelve reactors that were perfectly
managed. And so that’s why I don’t think people have been
able to achieve what is achievable with good management.
We have an enormous amount of data on worm populations,
how many should be in there, and how much they consume,
and all the rest of it. By the way, that comment about they’ll
consume one-half their weight per day. That keeps persisting
in the literature. I’ve no idea where it came from. I know of
no scientific validation of that figure. It’s not even a good
thing to make such statements because they consume every
different type of waste at different rates. And there’s no
scientific basis for it anyway.
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CC: Many people wonder about the production capabilities
of vermicomposting, such as loading rates. How much waste
can earthworms process? Can you clarify some figures?
Using Eisenia fetida, for example, you have previously
suggested they should occupy about 10% of the volume of
material. Does this amount to 2 pounds earthworm biomass
or more per square foot of material on a Continuous Flow
Reactor (and at what depth)? Is it safe to estimate they’ll
consume one-half their weight per day? (And will they
consume different feedstocks at different rates—food
residuals, biosolids, manures, yard debris compost?) With a
square-foot surface area of approximately 1,000 square feet
(8’x128’), it’s been reported that a Continuous Flow Reactor
might process 100 tons per year. That works out to 547
lbs./day for 365 days. Are these reasonably accurate figures
for waste managers to use for projecting processing rates that
are reliable year round?
CAE: It depends here on the feedstock and the management
because earthworms may process different wastes at different
rates. The recommended rate of addition of waste to a reactor
is about 1” per day. That is equivalent to 1024 sq. ft. or 116
sq. yds. (one inch deep) or 3.2 cu. yds. per day. The figures
that have been quoted are for a well-managed system.
Incidentally, we’re planning to bring the man who managed
the original systems [Keith Fletcher] over to the U.S. for a
year to manage [some new systems]. And he’s got “worm
fingers,” just as some gardeners have green fingers. You’ve
mentioned 100 tons in your [question above], but a well-run
reactor can process a thousand tons per year, if managed
properly. And that’s quite a lot, because we’re talking not
500 pounds per day, we’re talking two or three tons per day.
CC: With what earthworm biomass?
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In Their Own Words
CAE: Well, basically, somewhere between two and four
pounds of worms per square foot to a depth of about 6-8
inches. I’ve never achieved a population better than four
pounds of worms per square foot. And I’m also talking just
about a perfectly managed reactor. Not one that people throw
stuff on by chance every week, or whatever. It has to be kept
at the right temperature, it has to be kept at the right moisture,
and it has to be managed properly. You cannot afford to let
the moisture vary more than about five or ten percent either
side of the optimum [because if you do] efficiency drops by
approximately two-thirds, immediately. And the same with
temperature, if it gets too hot or too cold, the rate of
processing goes down. I’m talking about a properly run
environmentally-managed reactor.
CC: I think there’s some science as well as art in this. You
spoke about the individual having “worm fingers,” and Dan
Holcombe seems to do his operation more efficiently than
others. But for a waste manager, who’s saying, “I’ve got this
input of material that needs to be taken care of, every day, day
in and day out,” to build one of these systems and to make it
reliable, if you’ve got the magician present there who can
control everything optimally, can you still process that rate
with 4,000 lbs. of worms in a single reactor?
CAE: We had one man manage twelve reactors. It’s not
such a great amount of work to load and unload them and to
make sure of the rate of loading, particularly if you get
electronically controlled temperature. Really, it may sound
like a lot of work but it isn’t.
CC: No. What sounds like a lot of work is the worm
consumption of that material. I’m coming back to that point
because that seems to be a sticking point with a lot of people
who don’t see that the earthworms have this capacity…
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Dr. Clive Edwards
CAE: I have all the data from reactors that Keith Fletcher
managed including the population of worms. The best waste
processing we’ve achieved was a thousand tons of
vermicompost per year. Basically, the figure which, I think,
you’ve quoted somewhere else is about a ten percent ratio of
worms to waste. In other words, the worms and the waste are
at about the same percentage moisture content, and really the
optimum worm population we ever had in the laboratory is
about one in eight, but if you’re achieving one in ten [ratio of
worm weight to the weight of the material] you’re doing
pretty well. Worms also convert waste into tissue very
rapidly. We’ve obtained a whole range of conversion ratios
from organic matter to worms. The best reactor figures we’ve
had is to turn ten percent of the waste into worm tissue for pig
waste and bio-solids. That’s a lot of weight of worms and a
large amount of waste.
CC: Let’s shift from the process to the result. One of the
most exciting areas of research being conducted now, and
undoubtedly will continue to be well into the future, concerns
the effects of vermicompost upon plant growth and vitality.
Research you are spearheading at Ohio State University in
plant growth trials has confirmed that as little as 5% and a
recommended 10-20% vermicompost (by volume) in soil
potting media produces “unique and remarkable plant growth
responses,” as you, Dr. Subler and Dr. Metzger reported in
“Comparing Vermicomposts and Composts,” (BioCycle, June
1998, 63-66). You have been saying for several years that
you suspect the effects upon plant growth are related to the
increased microbial activity in worm-worked material. At the
Stockton workshop, for example, you stated, “what comes out
the back end of an earthworm is a thousand times more
microbially active than what goes in the front end.” How
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In Their Own Words
much further along are we in our understanding of this
microbial activity because of your research?
CAE: We only started the vermicomposting plant research
seriously about a year or two ago. Prior to that, we’ve been
working on earthworms in soil systems here since ’88, with
NSF funding. With that funding we’ve done an enormous
amount of work on the interactions between earthworms and
microbes. We have published a lot of papers on it too. In fact,
it’s a dynamic process. We’ve also looked at how long in the
cast material the microbes’ activity increases and what
happens to them at the end. It’s quite a complicated process.
So, the statement [“what comes out the back end of an
earthworm is a thousand times more microbially active…”] is
not an accurate figure any more than the figure [that
earthworms consume] “half their weight per day.” And what
I’ve said is, “It may be as much as a thousand times.” People
always pick on these figures and say, “Yes, that’s what
happens.” Of course, it doesn’t always happen and doesn’t
persist. Gradually the microbes in the casts will fall off in
numbers. Certainly vermicompost remains very microbially
active for a long time. One of the keys, of course, is that these
are microbes which are much better at transforming nutrients
into forms readily taken up by plants than you find in
compost—because we’re talking about thermophilic microbes
in compost—so that the microbial spectrum is quite different
and also much more beneficial in a vermicompost. I mean, I
will stick by what I have said a number of times that a
vermicompost is much, much preferable to a compost if
you’re going in for a plant growth medium—if you’re looking
for something to market. But you know, most composters
don’t market it; they pick up the tip fees and that’s the end of
the day.
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Dr. Clive Edwards
CC: That’s why I see that the people who are really
interested in soil fertility, if they’re doing any sort of
thermophilic composting, would love to get into this, at least
as an adjunct, as part of their operation, to produce a higher
quality soil amendment.
CAE: And they can be combined. You can do a short period
of composting followed by a period of vermicomposting.
And that is beneficial all around because it helps in killing the
pathogens and it helps in speeding up the worm process. The
worms will consume the slightly composted material much
faster. You do away with the likelihood of overheating by
pre-composting. So there’s lots of plusses to doing one after
the other, actually.
CC: Would you say Ohio State University is probably the
leading institution in conducting plant growth trials with
vermicompost?
CAE: Apart from some work in Australia, I think we’re the
only one. I did hear it mentioned that someone was doing
something over at Rutgers. But, there are virtually no people
doing this. That’s been the problem. Nobody’s proved that
vermicompost performs so very well. Unless that data is in
the literature, nobody’s going to believe it. Basically, what
we’ve been doing, over the last two years with some small
funding from various sources, has been work that’s done in
the greenhouse. Not very much [has been done with] on-thefield applications. It’s only right at this moment [that] we’re
doing the field applications. We started an experiment about
a week ago. We’re growing tomatoes, peppers, raspberries
and strawberries on a large field scale. We’re looking at
different doses, different placements—most of the variables—
and also comparing with one or two composts, and inorganic
fertilizers, I might add. We’re doing all these experiments as
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In Their Own Words
we have in the greenhouse experiments, when all the nutrients
the plants need are there. In other words, whatever the
vermicompost does, it’s over and above nutrient supply.
CC: We asked Dr. Bill Roley of the Southern California
Permaculture Institute to pose a question. He asks, “The
worm seems to manage an ecology of microorganisms that are
contained in its castings. What are the types of byproducts
created in this microbe-rich environment that affect plant
germination and seedling root-elongation, allowing more
minerals (are there other byproducts?) to be absorbed by the
plant? What contributes to the tremendous growth and
stem/flower production when using worm castings? And,
what is the latest on your biological assessment of worm tea
and how do you see its expansion in the future?”
CAE: [Laughter] That’s the $64,000 question! At the
moment I’ve got a $350,000 NSF grant aimed at answering
that question. We only just started this research. We don’t
really know the mechanism. We suspect it may be plant
growth regulators, because it is well known that microbes
produce plant growth regulators.
But whether they’re
producing quantities that can affect plant growth…I don’t
know. I personally am against what they call “Earthworm
Tea.” I’m personally not in favor of it because most people
who do it want to have their cake and eat it. They want to sell
the vermicompost and the liquid. You can’t have your
nutrients and other good things in two places at once. So if
you leach something out, one may benefit and the other is
going to suffer. Personally I don’t think it’s a very good way
to go. [One might] believe the reports on what “earthworm
tea” does to plant growth, [but] I’ve not seen any good
scientific substantiation of it. In fact, [if there was evidence]
that would support plant growth regulators, because they are
water-soluble and they might come out in solution. One of
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Dr. Clive Edwards
my colleagues in Australia, John Buckerfield, did pretty
extensive trials and in fact, it didn’t work at all. So I don’t
know. I still have an open mind about that.
CC: Do you have any feelings about the use of compost tea
as a foliar?
CAE: Well, there’s no scientific support for it whatsoever.
CC: It’s all anecdotal?
CAE: Yes, it’s all anecdotal. I’ve never seen any scientific
support for the use of liquids. However, we are making water
extracts and looking at what they do as part of the NSF grant,
but that’s only a minor part of it. It’s bad enough trying to
prove the effects in the parent solid materials without sort of
diverting into something entirely different. That may be a
little niche market or something for earthworm tea, but I don’t
honestly believe it’s much of a market because, in fact it’s the
other things that vermicompost has which creates the benefits,
not just the liquid. It’s the soil structure, the water holding
capacity, the retention, drainage, pathogen control and many
other things. We’ve even got one student who’s found effects
on mycorrhizal activity. So it’s not the liquid that comes out
which has all the good effects. I think this a diversion which I
don’t want to follow myself. If people want to do it, they can
go and do the research themselves. The other thing is, we’re
wrestling enough with what are the quality factors of compost
and vermicompost. Where do you go if you’ve got a liquid?
You can claim anything and say anything. How do prove it or
disprove it? That’s what seems to be the problem to me.
Those who want to do it can do it, but I’m personally not
going to get involved.
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CC: One of your colleagues, Dr. James Metzger of the
Department of Horticulture and Crop Science at the Ohio
State University, spoke at a conference last year on
“Utilization of Vermicomposts as Ornamental and Vegetable
Growth Media.” He found that a greenhouse grower could
produce four crop cycles of marigolds with 10%
vermicompost in the same time as it would take to grow 3
crop cycles of marigolds without vermicompost. In other
words, a grower who could reduce his time and labor costs
would be saving substantially by using vermicompost.
Additionally, he reported that with the use of vermicompost,
the “elements of healthy root and leaf systems, [as well as]
faster growth rates are all of economic value to the
greenhouse grower.” And Dr. Scott Subler, another of your
colleagues, is pursuing a commercial interest in producing and
marketing vermicompost in the Pacific Northwest. Clearly,
your own enthusiasm for the use of vermicompost is being
matched, if not exceeded, by your associates, and the
commercial potential for this material is raising eyebrows. Do
you think the discoveries being made of the benefits of
vermicompost may revolutionize horticultural or agricultural
practices? Are we standing at the edge of a new era in
agricultural science?
CAE: I can’t speak for my colleagues, but all I can point out
is that Dr. Metzger has a distinguished chair in horticulture.
What it was formed for was to look at new media for plant
growth. We got him involved about two years or so ago. He
came and listened to us and said, “That sounds interesting.”
And so, all we did was give him a couple of sources of
vermicompost and suggested that he conduct some trials. He
had a graduate student who did them. Later, both of them
came back with great enthusiasm. They said, “We can’t
believe the results we’re getting.” It was from there we linked
up with them. The amazing thing is with a broad range of
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Dr. Clive Edwards
crops how similar the results are. You’d think there’d be
much more variation. That’s one of the things we just don’t
know the answer to. With the three or four vermicomposts
we’ve tested here we get the same effect with a range of
crops. You get maximum growth improvement somewhere in
the lower levels of substitution of vermicompost, not with
100%. Maybe it involves some adverse factors—it could be
ammonia, salts, or whatever, or other adverse materials in the
100% which get diluted down—but we don’t know if it’s a
positive or negative effect, why the 100% doesn’t do as well.
There are many possible explanations. But I can’t speak for
them [associates at OSU]. In terms of Scott Subler, his
actions speak for themselves. He’s been with me seven years.
He’s been working on vermicompost for two years.
Suddenly, last autumn, he came and said, “I’m starting a
commercial operation.” He must have convinced himself that
it would be a worthwhile effort. He’s still functioning in two
capacities. He still participates partly on our research. His
own business he does by himself. I don’t have any input into
it.
CC: If the truth of what vermicompost does as a horticultural
medium gets out, do you think we’ll be standing at the point
in time in the future where, perhaps, the demand exceeds the
supply?
CAE: It’s always feasible. It must be validated thoroughly,
scientifically. The production has got to be managed well; it
goes back to your earlier question. It’s got to be produced
cheaply enough. For whatever reason, people seem to be
paying a lot of money for it. We’ve had offers from Japanese
people through diverse routes—they’re willing to pick it up
and transport to Japan for about $300 a ton. You have to take
off those [prices] the costs of producing the fancy bags and
the marketing and all the rest of it. That’s the top potential.
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In Their Own Words
My own guess is that there should be a pretty [good] niche
market out there for people at somewhere between $100 and
$300 a ton. But think how that compares with the product of
[American Resource Recovery’s] Mario Travalini—he has a
beautiful vermicompost—in fact, he shipped us 1200 lbs. this
week that we’re doing trials on. And he’s only getting about
$40 a ton or something on this order. [Ed. note: This
information has been confirmed and approved by Mario
Travalini.] We have done some analyses on it. It’s a little
low on nutrients, but that’s not the issue, unless you’re going
for the organic market, you can always top the nutrients up;
it’s really the other properties which are important.
CC: Well, the fact that his [Mario Travalini’s] vermicompost
is processed outdoors in windrows, you suspect some leaching
may be involved there too?
CAE: CSIRO conducted a survey of vermicompost in
Australia sometime during the last ten years. They looked at
about nine or ten commercial vermicomposts produced in
windrows. And no matter what the parent material, they
found they were all deficient in nutrients. Now that goes
diametrically against our reactor experience. We’ve found
that all the materials that were produced in reactors have had a
surplus of nutrients. So it’s just a question of time.
Windrows seem to take anywhere from six to eighteen
months, whereas we can usually get waste through a reactor in
hopefully thirty and up to a maximum of sixty days. And
there’s no leaching either, because you don’t get any water
passing through. That’s the problem. But I don’t think that’s
critical, necessarily, because again you can always top up the
nutrients, if that’s the issue, unless you’re going for an organic
market.
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Dr. Clive Edwards
CC: Interest in vermiculture is worldwide. You have spoken
extensively throughout Australia, for example, addressing
earthworm growers there during a time when its popularity
seemed to be at its peak.
Your many international
consultancies have taken you all over the world. Can you
comment upon some of the more significant, interesting or
unusual work being done in places like Australia, India,
Europe or other places?
Are they any reasons why
vermiculture makes better sense in regions of the world other
than our own, due to economic factors, climate, earthworm
availability, technology, or differing cultural factors?
CAE: There are one or two [reasons]. First of all, because of
mostly tropical climates, you can use the more tropical species
of earthworms. There are two or three of those out there,
which are just as good if not better [than earthworms used in
non-tropical climates]. So they have a greater choice of
species. And, secondly, labor is much cheaper. They could
go to relatively labor-intensive systems and make them work.
A system in India seems to be working extremely well.
Australia is another question. That’s a story all by itself.
When I was there a year or two ago, they had a thousand
members in the Australian Worm Growers Association. I
never spoke to less than 150 people. It was very, very
popular. But there was a reported scam operation that did a
lot of harm to that. They gave the whole thing a bad name.
They probably have over about 200 or 250 members now.
But that’s one of your later questions. India is going very
well. It seems to be expanding. The one I haven’t visited, to
which Mary Appelhof has been and other people seem to
think where there is an awful lot going on, is Cuba. And I’m
supposed to go to China this week, but I’ve postponed it for a
month. I’ve had two Chinese professors. And they both say
there’s an enormous amount of vermiculture that goes on in
China. But in China and to some extent a bit in Cuba, they
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In Their Own Words
also have other outlets. Some of them are actually using the
worms as protein for animals, which is where we started from.
So it’s not just the vermicompost with them. And of course
they also have pharmaceutical outlets for them. I don’t know
whether they work or not, but there were two people in Vigo
[Spain, site of ISEE 6 in September 1998] who gave papers on
the pharmaceutical use of earthworms.
CC: Is there anyone doing work with earthworms and
cosmetics? Is that the French?
CAE: Yes, I’ve heard some rumor of that. But I don’t know
any chapter and verse. But that seems to be happening to
some extent. There was a big vermiculture industry in Italy.
It wasn’t precisely a scam, but it was tending that way. They
were getting people to process it, boxing it in pretty boxes and
selling it at a high price. These little boxes that you can
sprinkle on your domestic household plants—they’re fine—
and I think they may even work. But there’s a limited market
there. You can’t go on to a large-scale development of an
industry with little boxes you sprinkle on your household
plants. It has to be a much bigger context than that.
CC: In a previous conversation we had, you mentioned that
there were 600 farmers in attendance when you spoke on the
role of earthworms in soil fertility just a couple years ago in
North Carolina.
Judging from the sheer numbers of
individuals representing interest groups you have addressed, it
seems that two principal groups are demonstrating the greatest
interest in earthworms: farmers/agricultural interests and
entrepreneurs interested in vermiculture (such as the large
groups of worm farmers you addressed throughout Australia
two years ago). A third interest group, those looking at
vermicomposting as a waste management option, seem to
occupy a distant third position, even though you have
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Dr. Clive Edwards
delivered many presentations at composting conferences such
as BioCycle over the past decade. Would you agree that, at
least presently, there is greater interest in soil fertility and the
commercial aspects of raising earthworms than there is in the
use of earthworms in organic waste management? In the
future, will interest in vermicomposting be stimulated more
from the need to produce a valuable soil amendment, rather
than from interest to stabilize organic residues?
CAE: Well, I think it’s possible, maybe even probable, but
they’re quite different. Concerning soil fertility, I’d say that
every farmer I’ve talked to seems to feel that earthworms are
a sign of good soil. They may well be scientifically right,
because it shows plenty of organic matter and good microbial
activity, etc., so it’s a good index. Strangely enough, there’s
an enormous interest in soil quality at the moment [by] even
hard line chemists and physicists [who] include earthworms as
one of the criteria for soil quality. That’s been pretty well
proven and established. [As for] commercial aspects of
raising earthworms—it’s been going on forever—it just
moves on in much the same way, it doesn’t change. Fishbait
is fishbait, you know, and that’s what it comes down to in the
end of it. Most of these people who raise earthworms for
fishbait, particularly during the scams, have found they
couldn’t sell their worms so they went off into the
vermicompost and casting business and made some money
that way.
CC: The forthcoming Manual of Vermicomposting that you
are now editing will feature nearly two dozen chapters on
various aspects of the practice of vermicomposting. Authors
from Spain, the U.K., France, Australia, China, India, and the
U.S. have submitted chapters on a variety of aspects of
vermicomposting, ranging from various technologies in use to
studies on vermicompost quality. This Manual appears to be
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In Their Own Words
a fairly comprehensive sourcebook that will summarize the
state of our knowledge about vermicomposting at the end of
the millennium. Can you share a few details about how this
project originated and what kinds of information we might
expect? It seems that the targeted audience will be broader
than, say, those who might read the proceedings from ISEE 6
held last year in Spain.
CAE: The reason it originated is very, very simple. It was
that my telephone never stopped ringing by people who said,
“I understand you’re an expert on vermiculture and
vermicomposting, can you tell me how to do it?” [Laughter]
So, I was spending about half my time (well, I still am) on the
telephone talking to people and not getting much done. The
book we did from the conference [Earthworms in Waste and
Environmental Management, held in Cambridge, England
1988] answered quite a few of the questions, but that’s ten
years out of date now. And so it seemed a good time to do
this. Then I talked to Jerry Goldstein at BioCycle, and he said
what a good idea it was. It will be a companion volume to the
composting books they sell. So we set up an arrangement to
do it. Like all these edited volumes, it’s taking longer than
you expect, because some people come up with their
contributions very quickly and some people take a long time.
The situation we’re in now [is that] we’ve got it all here. If
everything goes well in the next two or three weeks, I hope to
get it off to Jerry by the middle of June. The information is
broad. It covers every aspect I can think of, that needs
addressing. It covers what’s happening in a lot of countries.
We’ve got chapters on Japan, China, Mexico, India, England,
Spain—it’s got quite a range of different countries. That may
be a help too. One I haven’t done, and I guess that’s my
personal problem in not having made the effort, is Cuba. I
think we should have a chapter on Cuba and I haven’t got one
yet. But that’s too late, really, now to bother about that. But
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Dr. Clive Edwards
it will reach a broad audience and be very useful, I think. It’ll
take a big weight off the problems I face.
CC: Is there anything coming in from South America?
CAE: Yes, I keep getting these queries that come in from
people. There’s one man in Brazil who’s producing enormous
amounts of worms. He seems to be selling worms in the
United States successfully too. He can sell them for about $2
a pound, including transport, which certainly undercuts most
of the people who are selling them in the U.S. Yes, there are
activities there. They come and they go. But no chapter [in
the Manual of Vermicomposting] because I haven’t identified
the right person. Mexico was the nearest to South America.
CC: You continue to carry on a vigorous schedule of
speaking and consulting all over the world. One event in the
U.S. to which we might look forward is one you are planning
along with Mary Appelhof, the Vermillennium, tentatively
scheduled for September 2000 in Michigan, a 20th anniversary
commemoration of the Workshop she organized in 1980.
What is being planned for this occasion and are there other
things on the horizon we might anticipate?
CAE: What my idea is, and I think Mary is going along with
it, is to have this conference in two phases. First, we’d have a
two or three-day practical session when people who want to
learn all the practical details of vermicomposting would
attend—the worm growers, in other words. And hopefully,
they would stay on for the second part which would be more
scientific. After two or three days training they might be in a
stronger position to appreciate what the scientists are going to
say. Now what’s going to be in the scientific content, I don’t
know. But one of the thoughts I had was that maybe some of
those people writing chapters for the Manual might be able to
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In Their Own Words
give talks in the scientific session, plus maybe a few others.
[Ed. note: The attendance at the Stockton CA workshop in
March, 1999 led Dr. Edwards and Mary Appelhof to consider
the great attendance they might have at the upcoming
Vermillennium.] At the original meeting she had in
Kalamazoo, I think we had about 50 people there, or
something, at most. [These were] the early days—when most
of the attendees were scientists. You know what you got at
your own meeting in Stockton—140 people. And she was
planning for [just] 150 at this enormous great meeting! So we
have had to do some re-thinking. Mary still wants to do it in
Kalamazoo, but she may even have to re-think that. When we
had the conference in Cambridge, England, we had nearly 400
people then, and that was in 1984. Something like this, you
could easily expect four or five hundred, I would think. That
would be my guess, if it were well organized. That’s still a bit
in the air. The aim of it is to do two complementary things
which may bring the worm growers into the scientific stream
a bit more. That’s my aim anyway.
CC: Is there going to be an ISEE 7?
CAE: Yes, it’s going to be in Wales. They’re held every
three years, so it’ll be in 2001. It looks like they’ve got pretty
good facilities there.
CC: In some interviews you’ve had with the media you’ve
lamented that unscrupulous worm scams have undermined the
legitimacy of a nascent earthworm industry, both here and
abroad. Who is affected most as a result of these charlatans’
activities: individuals who were bilked of their investment
dollars or the active worm workers who are seeking to
increase the prestige and legitimacy of vermicomposting?
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Dr. Clive Edwards
CAE: Well, we’re all affected, is the answer to that. My
sorrow is the people who ring me up. And they’re usually old
retired people who have a little bit of capital—5, 10 15
thousand—and think, “What a wonderful way to have a hobby
which will make some money.” So they fall for all the ads
these people put out—they’re going to get all these sums of
money suggested. And so they get badly hurt. Most of them
get little recompense. But it’s also that every time we talk
about it, people say, “Oh, we’ve heard about these scams.”
And so the scientific legitimacy goes down the tube as well. I
don’t think it’s one or the other. We’ve got a legitimate
scientific aim, trying to prove a system. If it gets a bad name
through these people, you’re never going to prove it. It’s
wide open to claims which are not true. I know some who
claim, “You just put a little bed in your backyard and you can
produce 20 pounds of worms a day.” It’s incredible what they
claim.
CC: Thank you for taking the time to share this information.
In closing, what, in your opinion, will be the principal areas of
research and development in the future that will enlarge the
status of vermicomposting to the point where, we hope, it will
someday become a household word?
CAE: I think the whole thing is validation of the system. It’s
validation of the various systems including the reactor and
wedge systems, and things like this, to show that they work.
Ninety-five percent of vermiculturalists still use windrows, no
matter what you do. Personally, I’m very prejudiced against
windrows because of the loss [of nutrients] and time, and
everything else. That’s developed over the years. And I think
there are many other ways to go—there’s the reactor, there’s
wedges, there’s various other things which keep cropping up.
I hope that systems will be developed and improved—
commercial systems. The things we are trying to do now,
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In Their Own Words
which is growth trials, are really the second thing. You’ve got
to validate the product before anyone’s going to buy it.
Hopefully, by another year, we should have enough published
data to make that reasonable. That includes a human
pathogen study, which is still not published. In fact, I’ve got a
pile of data from a group down in Florida we’re waiting to
analyze with some very good pathogen data. The other is the
economic and marketing end. You’ve got to get the message
across—the better quality the product, the better price you can
get for it. And standardizing the product. That’s the one we
keep fighting, you know, we fought at your meeting. In all,
the systems have to be managed. You’ve got to get people
who are really experienced and can manage. Those people
are not too common. What is really needed is a combination
of a scientist such as Scott [Subler] and somebody who is a
good business manager who can work side by side. I think
that’s what’s going to make it fly. Then there’s the need for
enough capital, because you can’t do these things cheaply.
That’s what it comes down to, if you’re going to go for scale.
Somebody’s got to be convinced that vermicomposting has
enormous economic potential and who is willing to risk two
or three million dollars. Then it’ll go, if it’s well managed.
But starting when you’re always looking over your shoulder,
“Am I going to go broke tomorrow?” is not a good way to go.
And that’s been the problem.
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Chapter Eleven
Dr. Scott Subler
Pacific Garden Company
Dr. Subler is President of The Pacific
Garden Company in Ferndale, WA, and
Millheim, PA.
He also maintains an
appointment as an Adjunct Assistant
Professor in the School of Natural Resources
at The Ohio State University. He spent the
past 7 years working at the OSU Soil Ecology Laboratory.
Dr. Subler earned his Ph.D degree in Agricultural Ecology
from Penn State University in 1993. At Ohio State, he
directed a number of federally funded research projects
concerned with agricultural nutrient management, earthworm
ecology, and vermicomposting. He has published widely on
these topics in scientific journals, books, and magazines, and
has shared his knowledge through numerous formal
presentations for a variety of national and international
audiences including academics, government regulators,
industry leaders, farmers, horticulturists, and gardeners. As
President of Pacific Garden Co., Dr. Subler spends much of
his time educating the public about the extraordinary value of
earthworm castings for growing healthy plants, and about the
importance of the sustainable use of organic resources. This
interview appeared in two editions of Casting Call, in October
1999 and December 1999.
Casting Call: I guess the most intriguing question concerns
your departure from Ohio State University for a new career in
marketing earthworm castings. But before we get into that,
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In Their Own Words
perhaps you can set the stage a bit. What kind of
vermicomposting research were you involved with at OSU?
(Length of time there, what brought you there, dollar funding,
types of research projects, etc.)?
Dr. Scott Subler: After finishing my PhD at Penn State in
1992 in ecology (I studied nutrient cycling in agro-forestry
systems in the Brazilian Amazon), one of the things I focused
on was how to keep intensive horticultural agro-forestry
systems going in extremely impoverished soil. I got a real
appreciation for the importance of organic matter and soil
ecology—all the biological things that were happening in the
soil—for maintaining nutrients and making them available to
plants. That really was the key for the whole system down
there. [So, very] early on my dissertation was on an emphasis
of soil organic matter and its importance in growing plants
and its function within an agro-ecosystem, or even a natural
eco-system. That was the background. I came to Ohio State
as a Post-Doc to work on a project that was looking at nutrient
cycling in conventional Midwestern Ag systems. So basically
[I was] going from really interesting tropical agro-forestry
systems to…[laughter] corn-soybean-corn-soybean—a real
change in environment—but it was looking at a lot of the
same things: What influenced the way that nutrients moved
through the system. The real emphasis of this project—this
was a big project funded by the USDA involving five states
and lots of people—was looking on groundwater
contamination with nutrients and with agricultural chemicals.
What I focused on was how soil biology and in particular how
earthworms influence the movement of nutrients into the
subsurface and groundwater. That was working with [Dr]
Clive [Edwards] along with some agricultural engineers,
mostly with soil worms. The vermicomposting research came
much later. We had funding from the National Science
Foundation. I worked with Clive and we got some continued
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Dr. Scott Subler
funding from USDA to support that research. And again, one
of things that continued to come up was that worms played a
central role in regulating the flow of nutrients to the soil.
Also, how they affected the organic matter in the soil seemed
to be a key part of that. And then while this was happening
there was always this background noise about
vermicomposting and Clive talking about things that he did
back in England. Our focus was really soil worms and
agricultural systems. But I think he was trying to motivate
some work in the area [of earthworms.] Slowly we started to
get some funding for vermicomposting research. And then
Clive and I got a USDA grant to do vermicomposting
research. We’ve been funded by USDA [as well as] a number
of people within the industry, to varying degrees. It’s kind of
hard to say that $2,000 here [from industry is equivalent to]
the $140 or $220 [thousand] that you get from the
government, but that coming from industry is just as
significant in a lot of ways. So industry support has been
there from various sources, Oregon Soil Corporation,
Vermicycle Organics, and ARR has kicked in a little bit. I
don’t know that we need to list names, I don’t want to forget
anyone and have people mad at me, but that’s been important
early on. At Ohio, the University itself and the Agricultural
Research and Development Center have also contributed all
sorts of resources to our research as well. Most recently
we’ve gotten a National Science Foundation grant. Again,
Clive is the P.I. [principal investigator] on this one, that looks
both at soil worms but also at vermicomposting to some
extent, looking at plant growth regulators in castings and in
soils as influenced by earthworm activity. The government
funding has been pretty good and we get a lot of support and
direction from industry people. My own funding is around a
million dollars, if you take all the grants I’m a P.I. or co-P.I.
on. I’ve been at OSU about 8 years and involved in
earthworm-related research almost from the very beginning.
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In Their Own Words
Specifically, in vermicomposting, [I have been involved] for
maybe the last three or four years.
CC: So really, there was no interest in vermicomposting that
you found on your own, prior to meeting Dr Edwards.
SS: No, no. I was a soil person. Worms had always been
interesting to me. I was what you call a Nutrient Cycler, you
know, I was an ecologist. Agro-ecosystems was my thing
from the very beginning. That’s why I went to graduate
school. But worms—they were always there—but it wasn’t
something I focused on specifically until working in Clive’s
lab. My mandate there wasn’t really to come in and work
with worms. It became pretty apparent that that was a real
important factor in understanding how nutrients moved in
soils in these big ag-systems, just like it is in a lot of places. I
guess the government agreed with us that that was important
and they funded that quite well. Let me add something to
that. I thought vermicomposting was silly when I started. I’m
a real skeptic about things and particularly those things that
sound a little but funny. You know, [I thought] composting is
great. Vermicomposting…it might be okay. I didn’t know
much about it. It just seemed like—maybe I was influenced
by the general impression of worm farms and the sort of
scammy stuff associated with it. I didn’t really think there was
all that much of a difference between what was produced in
vermicomposting versus what was produced in composting—
because a lot of the research had showed that if you did the
nutrient content analysis and some of these other analyses—
they don’t look all that different. I just thought it was just
another way of breaking down… you know, decomposition is
decomposition is another way of going about it. And it wasn’t
until we actually started working with the material—until I
had firsthand experience with castings in the lab—that I
turned around on that. I had to convince myself, to overcome
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Dr. Scott Subler
my skepticism. I had to work hard at looking at all the work
that we did, but it didn’t take too long. I think this happens
with a lot of people. You see what the effects of worm
castings are. You start to recognize that there are some pretty
impressive, unique characteristics associated with them.
Plants do really well with castings. And that’s kind of where
I got really excited.
CC: And so excited that now here’s a relatively young
professor working in a prestigious position with ample
funding and possibly on the threshold of some major scientific
breakthroughs in research. Why would someone leave that
(not all of it, but a good deal of it) to pursue an area with so
many unknowns? Are you a risk-taker?
SS: That’s a good point. I really haven’t left anything. I see
this as just sort of a logical progression in my career reaching
a state where I do have a pretty good understanding of
castings—I’m kind of at the cutting edge of figuring out how
they work and what they’re good for and all that good kind of
scientific stuff, and [I] love doing the science… But it got
really frustrating because seeing in experiment after
experiment the real value that castings could have for people
who grow plants [and] that gaps between exciting research
results and people actually being able to use them was just
frustrating because these great results weren’t going
anywhere. [I began] wanting to work along with people in the
industry and, you know, I think you’ve been there a while too,
you see the industry, there’s lots of people sort of interested,
but everyone’s standing around sort of dipping their toe in the
water waiting for the other guy to jump in. After a while,
frustration combined with recognizing that there may be a
pretty good opportunity there, I said, “what the heck, let’s go
jump in.” Yeah, I guess that makes me a risk-taker. And, in
fact, after jumping in I realized that I’m certainly not the first.
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In Their Own Words
I look around now and I see that a number of other people
have made a pretty serious commitment to making
vermicomposting work as a waste management alternative or
for production of castings or for a number of different uses. I
felt [at first] like I was alone, and that may have added to the
motivation, but in fact, a number of people were out there
trying to swim around too.
CC: But you’re the first from academia.
SS: I’m the first from academia, but it’s not like there’s a
whole lot of academics out there studying this stuff. It’s no
huge bragging point to say that I’m one of the world’s experts
on earthworm castings. There are not a whole lot of people
who are weird enough to study something like that. It
certainly wasn’t an overnight thing. I’m maybe what you’d
call a “cautious risk-taker.” I saw the opportunity early on,
going to BioCycle conferences, and talking to people, and
visiting with different people growing worms and selling
castings. I thought about it and thought about it, and
considered it from a number of different angles and probably
would still be a budding young scientist if I hadn’t started
talking to people in marketing and finance about these ideas.
And once I got them to work on some ideas and crunch some
numbers—and when they came back grinning—that’s when I
felt a lot more comfortable making the leap in trying to go
into business with these concepts and opportunities. So it
wasn’t just one day I got fed up and ran out, it was fairly
cautious risk-taking. But for various reasons [since] I have to
focus on business, I’m down to an Adjunct [Professor]. In a
sense I’m contributing my services to Ohio State as a
contribution to the research there, [but] I’m not getting
compensated for that any more. But I still maintain an
appointment there, if that’s what you mean.
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Dr. Scott Subler
CC: Tell us about your project in Ferndale, Washington.
You’ve built a Rothamsted-style continuous flow reactor of
about the same dimensions as the Oregon Soil Corporation
reactor in Portland, Oregon. What is the general plan for this
system, and how did you get started?
SS: The plans for this type of reactor come from England.
Clive sort of carried them over with him. We had a proposal
to USDA to set up a pilot project where we were going to
build a reactor system and do some work with it. That’s
actually happening right now at Ohio State. This goes back to
the first question too. Things happen kind of slowly in the
research world. Not just the translation of the research results
to the practical application, but sometimes things like just
doing research on a decent scale in a pilot reactor can be
excruciatingly slow because you’ve got to deal with all the
bureaucracy. So there was a point at which we got set up and
got the funding to build a reactor at Ohio State and it was kind
of lagging along and I started joking with graduate students,
“I’d have my own up and running if I quit now long before we
get this thing going.” And one thing led to another, and the
timing was right. I was out of there. We went to Ferndale
and pretty quickly set up a [reactor]. It’s similar in
fundamental design, somewhat modified. I think the basic
technology is real straightforward. There’s no real “secret” to
building something like this. This is an aside: I sometimes
get a little disappointed when it’s presented as if there’s some
kind of magic bullet technology that’s going to revolutionize
the vermiculture industry when there are lots of ways to grow
worms perfectly well and it kind of depends on the style and
the experience of the person who’s going to do it. For indoor
systems I think the elevated bed has a lot of potential, and
that’s what we went with first, just because that’s the one that
I was most familiar with. So we put it together. The
philosophy was that rather than trying to custom design
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In Their Own Words
everything, we tried to find “off the shelf” parts. So it was
just a matter of ordering and bolting together rather than redesigning the wheel. We put that up and we’ve been running
it through the learning curve for the past four or five months
now. We’re producing castings from separated solids from a
dairy farm in Whatcom County and we’ll be marketing the
castings.
CC:
Mechanized
systems
are
undoubtedly costly.
SS: It’s like any
industry. You’re not
going to get in and
make a living if
you’re putting in
five or ten thousand
dollars. If you want to make some money and you’ve got
$60,000, go get an auto-lube franchise--because you’re sure to
make some money that way. It won’t be a tremendous
amount, but at least you’re assured of making money. And it’s
the same thing with this. These indoor systems and their
management are not cheap. You’ve got to make a substantial
investment in the equipment. And then our attitude is, if
you’re making X amount of investment in the equipment you
have to make nearly ten times that in the marketing effort if
you’re going to sell anything and make a profit at it. I think
that people, very often, get all turned on by the technology
and they say, “Hey, I can do that.” They come up with
enough money to build this stuff. Kind of like the Field of
Dreams, you know, “if you build it they will come.” The
trick is to sell it, not to make it.
CC: About how long did the construction take?
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Dr. Scott Subler
SS: It took us a few months to put together. Next time
around we could probably do it, ordering parts and having it
all done in about a month. The only custom built part was the
feeder that runs on top of the system. That ends up being
designed a lot like the guts of a manure spreader. I’ve seen a
number of people who have all built these kinds of things
independently and they all look pretty much the same. It’s not
like someone has some experience putting equipment together
and understanding how to move these types of materials.
Basically the dairy industry or any industry that moves
manure, all the gizmos and gadgets are pretty well there.
CC: Even with the understanding that one size doesn’t fit all,
some people get the idea that they could pay a visit to look at
a Continuous Flow Reactor, take a few pictures, perhaps make
a few drawings, and go home and build a working model.
Can you comment on the role that experience has to play in all
this?
SS: There’s definitely more to it than that. The most
important thing is to understand the fundamental principles.
Once you’ve done that, someone who’s good with equipment
could figure it all out, but no one wants to re-invent the wheel.
Like with most things, if someone’s already done it, go find
out what they’ve done and get their help to do it and you’re
usually way ahead. It took us three or four months to get
something together because we were kind of flying blind. We
weren’t really following any plans. So you sit and think and
you talk to people. We considered umpteen different designs
for the clean out and the breaker bar. We ended up going to
the dairy store and saying, “Here, let’s do this.” They came in
and in two days put the equipment in. The next time around,
it won’t be a problem. Now I know what to do. What we
have in Ferndale is really more of a pilot project. We have a
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In Their Own Words
single lane about 120 feet by 8 feet. But the equipment that
we’re using is suitable for two lanes, 250 feet long. It’s
simply a matter of expanding the size and the rest of the
equipment we’re using is adequate for that kind of thing. I
think that if we were going to do a better job of integrating
with a dairy farm, you would need a minimum of two lanes,
200-250 feet long to even put a dent in the kind of manure
they produce. We were purposely building so that next time
around if we scale up we don’t have to go through another
round of figuring out what materials to use. That’s why we
consider what we have just a pilot project.
CC: How are things different now? What kinds of things are
you learning?
SS: When you’re an academic you get up in front of people
and you can go up and down on what an authority and expert
you are on this and this and how many different systems
you’ve seen. But having never really done it yourself, there’s
always the feeling that you’re kind of getting away with
something. [Now] I’m doing it myself. I’ve committed my
own resources to it. It’s a real different thing when your
butt’s on the line. And when you’ve got to worry about it day
in and day out. There’s a learning curve there, but fortunately
right now, I’m working with some real good people. We’ve
been able to go through problems and overcome them. The
other thing that sort of gets to me is this whole sort of
“engineering model” for vermiculture. Maybe for composting
it works, but even for composting people recognize that
there’s a lot of little factors you have to weigh and balance
and some people are just better at composting than others.
With vermiculture it’s like farming. It’s like having a dairy
farm. You know, you’re caring for animals and it’s
complicated. You can’t just plug in a formula and measure a
temperature and say, “Okay, all done. I’m going home now.”
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Dr. Scott Subler
Somebody has to be thinking about these worms all the time.
Somebody has to be caring for the worms. You can have the
greatest technology in the world, but unless you’ve got a
manager who has some talent at it, it’s a bust. And I think
that’s what happens with a lot of people too. The idea that
you can buy a system and you can give it to them and there
will be no problems is also ridiculous. Go talk to a dairy
person. [If you asked them,] “Do they ever have any
problems with their operation?” They’ll laugh at you. Every
day is a new problem and every day involves working on a
solution to get over it. Cows get sick, you’ve got too many of
this and too much of that, you’ve got a barn to build… I think
it’s the same way with culturing worms. It’s livestock. To
finish the first thought, there’s no technological magic bullet.
The most important part of any vermicomposting system is
the manager, by far. Find someone who knows worms and
then work around that.
CC: At a Vermicomposting Workshop held in Portland in
February 1999, you discussed some research being done at
Ohio State University using “mini reactors.” You stated, “I
can heat up any worm bin.” It seems that overloading a
system is common as well as troublesome. But that leads one
to wonder if larger systems have fewer problems than smallscale worm bins. Does having a larger surface area reduce the
tendency to overheat a vermicomposting system, or will strict
adherence to the rule of applying only one inch of fresh
feedstock per day work well for a system of any size?
SS: The first thing about that is, as you go to larger systems
you’re actually getting a lower surface-to-volume ratio.
You’re reducing your capacity to have surfaces to dissipate
heat. When you’ve got a small box you’ve got an awful lot of
“side” relative to the volume inside. When you’ve got a real
big box there’s a lot of area there, but there’s a lot less “side”
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In Their Own Words
going on. One of the advantages of the elevated bed is that
you’ve got a top and a bottom that’s exposed. There’s a much
greater opportunity for dissipation of heat than if the bed was
just sitting on the ground. So that’s one thing. I’ve managed
to heat up big beds too, I’m happy to say. [Laughter] So, I’m
batting a thousand on overheating systems. Fortunately, we
found a way to cool it down before we lost all our worms.
Again, it was because someone had common sense and the
[right] equipment lying around. [My manager] sort of saved
the day. I had to manage this long distance. Part of the
problem is that you watch the food disappear on the top and
you think that the worms are all done eating it. And they may
be all done eating it, but just because they’ve eaten it and
passed it through their bodies, doesn’t mean that material still
doesn’t have some energy and heat left in it. So, in fact, they
eat it, they mix it up and then the microorganisms can really
go to town. So just because they’ve passed the food or eaten
all the food, doesn’t mean that food doesn’t have a lot of heat
left in it. And what we’ve seen in the lab and I think that this
is what happened to us in the big bed as well, is that you start
to accumulate layer upon layer of this material that’s not fully
stabilized, yet the temperature never really goes too high.
[Then] just one day, for whatever reason, you’ve got enough
stuff there, and it just starts to get hot. Once you pass some
threshold, then the heat-producing organisms all of a sudden
like it and start making more heat and it starts to snowball.
All of a sudden your temperature wants to climb real fast. So
what I’m saying is that earthworm castings, if they’re fresh,
can be unstable. It takes time. If you harvested worm
castings one week after they’ve been eaten, my guess is that
there’s still a fair amount of heat that can come out. There’s
no law that says that simply because a worm has eaten
something that it is going to be completely stabilized. We
know that microbial activity increases at the tail end. And if
you think about what that means, that means that if they’re
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Dr. Scott Subler
more active, they’re metabolizing more labile carbon and
likely producing a lot of heat. But it’s not intuitive. You see
them eat it, and say, “oh they’re done, I’m going to feed them
more.” It is partially stabilized. A lot of the heat does
disappear as they metabolize what they can in the gut. You
can build up layers of castings that still have a little bit of heat
and then once you get to a certain temperature, you kind of
click into those organisms that like it warm, and that help to
produce more heat. You get right to the edge of thermophilic.
And the nice thing about a large bed is that it does have a
pretty good heat capacity. So if it’s got a lot of moisture and
heat capacity it can take a lot of heat off the surface layer
before the temperature of the whole thing goes up. But once
you saturate that heat capacity, it’ll all start to heat. You can
get a bed pretty hot. The rule of thumb [an inch of feedstock
per day] may work for most materials. We kind of work from
that too, most of the time. It depends on whether you’re
giving material that’s already been pre-heated or whether
you’re getting fresh stuff that is super high in readily available
carbon. Those will respond very differently. The first
material has already gone through a heating so a lot of that
carbon is already gone and turned into microorganisms.
Worms like that better probably anyway. And it’s got less
energy that will heat in the bed. But if you’re putting in fresh
stuff and it’s got a lot of available carbon, it will heat up. You
develop your own rules of thumb for whatever material you’re
using. You ought to have a thermometer somewhere because
that ends up being pretty critical. We go through and poke the
beds. We have thermocouples sometimes. We had ‘em all
over the place in the lab. You get to the point where you can
sort of stick your finger in and feel where you are. There’s
nothing like having a thermometer there so you can walk by
and see where the temperatures are. It doesn’t have to be
some kind of NASA control system. You just got to have a
way of reading that temperature and watching it. You can
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reach a point where if it starts to get hot, you need to do
something about it. That can be a real problem if you build a
system that’s supposed to take a certain amount of waste and
there’s no alternative place for that waste to flow. I think
people run into this problem a lot. Because, if you get to the
point where you’re overfeeding the worms and you start to
build heat, the easiest thing to do, if you recognize that
happening is that you just don’t feed them for a little while.
They go back and re-eat it, or they just stop eating and the
heat dissipates. Everything’s cool again. But if you’ve got
this waste stream coming at you and you don’t have some
other things to do with it, and in the meanwhile you keep
throwing it on hoping that it won’t hurt it when, you’re out of
luck.
CC: So how did you cool down the worm bed?
SS: We were able to cool the bed down just with some fairly
straightforward ventilation. Putting fans in the right place and
running them the right way is a good way of cooling those
beds down. Having two surfaces, a top and a bottom, makes
it a lot easier to cool that kind of a bed down than something
that is sitting on a floor or in a bin. There’s a guy at Ohio
State, Dave McCartney, who’s messed with pushing and
pulling [airflows] and all sorts of different systems. I think
that, at least as an insurance policy, having a fan nearby or
some ability to control the airflow is a good idea. It saved our
beds. You get a big bed, you make a big investment in
worms. Just saving the worms is a pretty critical thing. If you
lose the worms you’re back to the beginning. You’ve got to
get more worms and it takes two or three months to get the
populations up to where they’re cranking. We’ve also tried
just dousing the beds with water. We didn’t do this on our big
bed. This was research that we did [at Ohio State]. We tried
one thing and then another thing. You get it wet and the
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Dr. Scott Subler
temperature goes down but all that extra moisture causes a lot
of reaction. It either starts to go anaerobic or as soon as the
moisture level goes down, it starts to heat up again. It’s a
temporary fix. It causes more problems than it solves.
CC: While we’re on the subject, tell us your beliefs about
loading rates. You read the interview with Dr. Edwards in the
last two issues of Casting Call. At what rates do earthworms
consume feedstocks?
SS: I’m going to fall back to the site specific, feedstock
specific. Even if you’ve got a farm that produces separated
solids, a really consistent product, if those solids are fresh, or
if those solids sit in a pile for a week, or sit in a pile for two
weeks, it makes a huge difference on how quickly the worms
eat it and how quickly you can pass the material through.
Like we were talking about before, I don’t think it’s how
much they can eat, I think the heat capacity and the energetics
of the system are more of a limiting factor than what the
worms will eat.
CC: So, people are always bringing up this question, “How
much do earthworms consume daily?” What’s the range that
you give—I know there are lab studies on this, but in the
field—is it half their weight, is it their body weight, is it oneand-a-half times their weight?
SS: I think those rules of thumb are okay in general, but then
you just have to try it on your own material.
CC: We’re going back to the idea of the Solid Waste
Manager who’s got this constant flow. What do we tell him?
He says, “I’ve got X tons coming in every day.” And he gives
you the job of constructing a system that will handle that
capacity.
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In Their Own Words
SS: You have to go based on the experience of what has
been done with a similar type of material. I don’t think a
general rule of thumb works. Like I said, it’s more a matter of
energetics. You could have really good, almost completely
stabilized compost, as good as compost gets, and feed that to
worms. Having nothing else to eat, they may go through and
eat it. They may not grow very well on it. But heck, you can
pass an awful lot of that stuff through a system, right?
Because it’s already done. But if you have fresh material,
you’re going to have to slow down. They may eat it better
and they may grow. You know, heat capacity and the latent
heat in the material going through—these are sort of energetic
principles that haven’t really been well worked out for
vermicomposting systems. The engineers for composting
have gone up and down and there’s a million different models
to describe this, yet for vermicomposting nobody’s really
gotten to the point where we’ve looked at energetics very
closely. I think that it’s become not just a worm consumption
issue but an overall energetic issue. I’m hedging on the
answer there. My experience is that I’m optimistic that some
of the figures that have been quoted as general rules of thumb
might not be that far off. I was somewhat pessimistic to start,
but I’m very pleased with what’s happening in our reactor. So
I’m cautiously optimistic. If you have 2 lbs. of worms per
square foot in a 1,000 square foot reactor, applying one ton
per day would be 365 tons per year. It looks to me as we’ll be
able to achieve that. We could get about half that in castings.
What’s happening now is that the worms are getting ahead of
us. I can see doing better than that, maybe considerably
better. We might be able to get up to [processing] a thousand
tons a year if we use pre-composted material in our bed. The
degree of pre-composting is going to be the biggest factor in
how fast we can put that through the bed. Nothing else. How
much of that energy you get out before putting it into the bed
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Dr. Scott Subler
is as big a factor as almost anything else, assuming that your
worm populations are roughly equal. So I don’t want to say
that you can’t do a thousand tons—I haven’t seen it yet—but I
think the qualification there is that [in referring to the
interview with Dr. Edwards in June ’99 and Aug. ’99 Casting
Call] that’s an optimum—I think the term perfectly managed
system. Boy, I can’t do that [laughter]. I don’t know anyone
who can do that. Perfectly managed is a tough thing to do.
Figure you’ve got to cut that in half, right off the bat. Start up
time, there are problems, you’ve got to slow down for this,
you’ve got summer, you’ve got winter, you’ve got heating,
you’ve got sour beds…Those kinds of things will happen. So
you have to cut it in half, at least. But I’ve got my fingers
crossed. I’m pretty pleased with the rates now.
CC: Are you making charts of the inflows and keeping
records of what you’re doing at Ferndale?
SS: Well, we’re documenting it. I’d hate to go so far as to
say I’ve had time to make any charts yet. Yes, I’m a scientist.
I can’t help myself. And I’m not there all the time so I keep
doubly sure that we keep track of what we’re adding and we
keep track of what we pull out. We measure by volume
because of the bins we use. It’s about time to measure the
worm population again. We’re way, way over what we had
going in. You’ve seen it, and I’ve seen it in little systems,
once you get over the hump with these guys, they just grow so
darn fast you don’t know what to do with them. Frankly, our
problem is too many worms. They’re falling out and we’re
not putting them back in. We’re starting other beds with the
worms we screen out.
CC: So are you getting juvenile worms from the bottom? Do
you have a 2-1/2 ft. depth and the worms are going all the way
to the bottom?
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In Their Own Words
SS: We’re getting a mix of worms—we get adults from the
bottom. What happened was that I was impatient about
seeing how the breaker bar works. I did that two times more
than I should have. The worm population got ahead of our
ability to feed and also our material handling wasn’t
completely worked out so we could have the material ready
fast enough. It just took us by surprise how quickly these
guys grew. So we ended up having not a very deep layer—we
were barely two feet. I’m guessing we had two or three
pounds of worms per square foot easily. And not being able
to feed them every day or every other day, they go up eat the
food, there’s no
more food left.
They go down and
look around, wiggle
around, and we
didn’t
need
a
breaker bar at that
point. There were
so many worms they
were causing the
stuff to fall through
on its own. Recently we kind of got ahead of it now where
we can keep them up better. It’s funny, because there are
things that have to do with temperature and moisture
preferences of worms that are different for the babies and the
adults. And if you read the literature, it’s all right there, but
you never really think about that little detail as mattering, but
you definitely can get stratification of different demographics
of the populations in your beds. The adults aren’t in the rapid
growth phase like the little guys are. The little guys seem to
prefer it a little bit warmer. You can find tons of those up,
even if it’s kind of warm, they’ll be up near the surface,
munching all the fresh material. The bigger guys, I think, are
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Dr. Scott Subler
more interested in reproducing. They tend to be down in the
slightly cooler areas. We see them go toward the sides, if it’s
a little bit warm in the middle of the bed. Our sides are
fiberglass and it’s pretty thin walled. So there’s heat
dissipation out the side. I think the reason they congregate at
the side at times is because it’s cooler there. And they go
down to the bottom unless there’s a compelling reason for
them to be up top. We’ve been doing things with controlling
both temperature and moisture where, we’re pretty good at
keeping everybody up on top. But we were struggling to get
enough material in the bed because they were just eating
things up. There were just too many worms.
CC: What about dead earthworms in castings? Let’s say you
harvested castings from the bottom of your reactor and put
them aside. And within your castings there were a
considerable number of earthworms, and you put that material
aside to cure, and those worms continued to process that
material until there was nothing left, and then they died,
contributing their bodies to the end product. Would that end
product containing a high number of deceased earthworms be
of any more or less value than your harvested fresh product?
SS: It depends on what you are going to use it for. I don’t
really know if it’ll have more or less value, but I think it will
be different. I think they’ll continue to work that stuff. And
very often with a lot of these manure-based materials, there
are a lot of little bitty plant fibers that the worms will either
eat around, or even if they eat it and excrete it, they’re still
there. Those things are lignified, it takes a little bit longer for
it to breakdown. If you let the worms work on that stuff for
six months in the pile and if you’ve got a lot of worms there
and they’re all starving, they’ll eat that stuff over and over
again if they have to. There’s this stuff about worms never
going back and eating their castings again. I’ve seen it too
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In Their Own Words
many times on a lab bench, that they’ll eat what they have to
eat until there’s nothing left and they’ll still try to get
something out of it. I think it’ll be quite different. In some
cases it may be better for some things. But the presence of
dead worms isn’t going to hurt anything. If they decompose
and stabilize as well, that’s just a little bit more nitrogen.
Upping the nutrient content on this stuff, I don’t know
whether that is a huge factor in what I perceive as being the
real value of castings. Having a little bit of nutrients, which
they do have, is a good thing. And some of them are quite
available and the others become available at a decent rate.
But I think it’s what they do for the microbiology in the soil
itself once they’re added that’s even more important in what
they introduce to the soil as beneficial microorganisms or as
other substances that have plant growth regulating effects.
CC: I thought it interesting what you said about earthworms
re-ingesting their castings. Mary Appelhof, in the glossary of
the second edition of Worms Eat My Garbage has a definition
of vermicast taken from John Buckerfield of Australia that
defines it as material ingested and reingested by earthworms.
Yet, there was a journal article some time ago saying that
earthworms were not copraphagic, i.e., they don’t consume
their own castings. But it’s been your experience that they do.
SS: Well it’s not an absolute, let’s put it that way. [Just
because] you wrap it in a big scientific word, it doesn’t mean
it always happens. It may be that they’re eating biosolids and
what they eat has a lot of microbial activity [that] leads to
some biochemical changes [and if] they don’t like what they
have in their poop anymore, they may not eat it. But in the
lab I’ve seen them eat it again and again and again until
there’s nothing left and then they die. They pass it quickly.
They get what they can out of it the first time and then they go
for some more fresh stuff because they’re able to assimilate
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Dr. Scott Subler
more per gulp or per mouthful on the fresh material. But if
there’s no more fresh material around, they’ve got to go back
to wherever they can get food or nutrition, and so they go
back to the stuff they’ve ingested before. And, in fact, by
ingesting it and mixing it and allowing microbial activity, the
second time around they can get stuff out of it they couldn’t
get out of it the first time around. In the field we think that
they do this quite a bit. Soil dwelling worms will eat soil and
eat soil and mix it around and that mixes more and more stuff
in and liberates more and more carbon… It’s almost as if they
sort of cause it to compost for themselves so that they can get
nutrition out of it over time of materials that they can hardly
get anything out of the first time around. So, no, I think it’s
quite common that they’ll re-ingest material if that’s all
they’ve got available to them.
CC: The long-awaited Manual of Vermicomposting to be
edited by Dr. Edwards and it published by BioCycle will
contain a number of chapters you have contributed. Can you
tell us about those you have written?
SS: Maybe we want to downplay this one. I don’t even
know what chapters I’m going to be on or not. It has been
long awaited. I’m not sure which ones of those that I’ve
worked on are going to be included, and which are going to
published separately. There’s a couple we were planning on
doing that we have decided not to do. The one that I know
will be in there, or that I know has been written and submitted
and discussed is the one relating to pathogens.
CC: And that chapter concerns whether vermicomposting
reduces pathogen levels in the final product. Is there
sufficient evidence of this to satisfy labeling requirements?
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In Their Own Words
SS: I’d have to say No. There’s not really that much
evidence at all. All the evidence that’s available, and this
chapter kind of reviews that, both sort of scientific as well as
field studies, as well as laboratory analyses coming from
people who have done it (sort of in the ‘real world’), the
results are fairly consistent. It seems that vermicomposting
can reduce pathogens quite significantly and quite rapidly.
But that’s a long cry away from being able to satisfy a
regulator or someone else that it’s going to be suitable as a
Process to Further Reduce Pathogens. Part of the problem is,
is that all of the process standards for composting and
pathogen reduction are based on risk analysis and risk
analysis requires a lot of studies and a lot of information in
order to say, okay, at this level it doesn’t seem like there’s
going to be a risk of pathogen contamination that’s harmful.
We’ve got maybe a dozen or less, well, it’s less, studies
concerning pathogens and vermicomposting.
Not even
vermicomposting, but just reduction of pathogens in a
laboratory container, as worms eat it, compared to stuff where
worms don’t eat. Because of that we’re not able to define the
process well enough to say, If vermicomposting occurs like
this, then it’ll be good enough to reduce pathogens. All we
can say is it can, it seems like there’s great potential, but we
can’t define the process parameters that are necessary to
ensure pathogen reduction. And that’s a problem. The
fallback ends up being, if you’re using clean materials then
the risk of pathogen contamination is pretty low anyhow. If
you’re using materials that have already been pre-composted,
that already have [undergone] the Process to Further Reduce
Pathogens, then again your risk of contamination is real low
and there’s probably nothing to worry about. At the very
worst, if you’re using raw manures, then the guidelines you
would follow, the worst you would be, is the guidelines
people use for handling manure. You can buy manure at the
store and take it home and throw it on your garden. Basically,
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Dr. Scott Subler
you don’t put it on your fresh vegetables and you wash your
hands after using it, and that’s kind of as far as people worry
about it. So I don’t think that there’s any evidence to suggest
that vermicomposting is going to make your material worse
than it was going in, and the evidence suggests pretty strongly
that it at least has the potential for making it a lot better and a
lot safer and a lot cleaner. But there’s not enough to satisfy a
regulator. If I were a regulator I don’t think I’d be satisfied
with the evidence there is. Because you can’t just say,
“vermicomposting.” What does that mean? Does that mean
one worm in a ton of material or does it mean two pounds of
worms per square foot? …consuming X amount of throughput
of organic material per day. Until you can define the process
like that, those vague statements like, “vermicomposting
produces safe castings,” are pretty meaningless.
CC: Dr. Roy Hartenstein began working on pathogen
reduction in biosolids through vermicomposting at SUNY in
Syracuse in the 1970s. But it seems that not much has been
done in this area since then.
SS: It was biosolids and the process. As a part of that
project there was some pathogen work that was done, but that
wasn’t his entire focus. It was just vermistabilization. That
was National Science Foundation funding. That was some of
the real early work that was taken seriously and well funded
by the government. But it hasn’t gotten all that much further.
It got to the point where we said, We ought to do something in
the lab. Because people kept asking us. So we went back and
did a study with a couple different types of manure. We
spiked it with some E. coli and some Salmonella. (I’m
supposed to be writing that up right now.) I’ve got that nearly
written up and ready for publication in a scientific journal. At
the same time, we hope to communicate some of that
information to people in the industry by putting out a
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In Their Own Words
BioCycle article, or something like that. It’s all pretty good
news. It appears that when worms are doing their thing
properly, pathogens go down significantly. The problem in a
regulatory framework is defining the process and defining
when worms are doing their job properly and when they’re
not.
CC: So really, the long and short of it is, the process has not
been defined to satisfy regulators. The only way you could
satisfy requirements for safe material is to have the material
analyzed in order to pass the test.
SS: Either start with safe materials so you’re starting with a
low risk from the very beginning or you do enough testing to
satisfy someone. Either of those options are not necessarily
prohibitive. The composting world is lucky because they’ve
got temperature. You just stick a thermometer in it and you
measure it. Temperature can’t go too far up or down with the
worms.
CC: Continuing with the subject of vermicompost and
quality, what can be said about earthworms and heavy metal
uptake in feedstocks such as biosolids? In a humorous way,
Dr. Edwards repeated a story that perhaps earthworms might
be responsible for taking up enough metals to the point that if
you rolled them around together you might hear them clink.
SS: They can bio-accumulate certain metals, but imagining
them being used as some kind of metal-extracting technology,
I haven’t considered that well enough to have any opinion on
it. It seems like it’s a long shot. Clearly they’re not going to
clink. Yes, they can absorb quite a bit, but some of these
metals are pretty toxic to the worms anyway. Again, it’s a
site-specific thing. They may help to bind some metals into
organic material so that they become less bio-available. And
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Dr. Scott Subler
in that sense they could be real useful in heavy metal
bioremediation. On the other hand they may do some things
that could release those metals and make them even more bioavailable. So it just depends on the soil and the situation and
the metals and that kind of stuff.
CC: Your article in the July ‘98 BioCycle, ”Comparing
Vermicomposts and Composts,” reported on plant growth
trials comparing 13 soil treatments, including various
combinations of compost, vermicompost and controls. Your
final sentence evokes great hope: “We are still attempting to
identify the biological mechanisms responsible for the
consistent performance of this material, as well as for the
unique and remarkable plant growth responses that continue
to be widely observed and reported for other vermicomposts
and earthworm castings.” Is the kind of evidence now
available in print enough for vermicompost marketers to
convince potential users of vermicompost’s benefits? What is
still needed in order to stimulate greater demand for
earthworm castings?
SS: It’s sort of a two-part question there. The first part is,
we continue to get closer to understanding how castings might
be working and why they might be beneficial and why they
have unique properties. It’s really a suite of mechanisms; it’s
not just one thing or another. Rola [Atiyeh of Ohio State
Univ.] has done some research very recently that seems to
indicate that humic extracts of worm castings carry along a lot
of the plant growth enhancing properties that you see when
you use the raw castings, sort of the whole castings
themselves. So it indicates that there do appear to be
chemical substances in the worm castings that have some
plant growth regulator effect. That was what the grant was
designed to explore. There’s some evidence that that may be
important, because some of the plant growth responses that
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In Their Own Words
are seen when you use increasing concentrations of that
extract look kind of like the plant growth responses that you
might see when you use sort of increased concentrations of
castings into a plant growth medium. Very often there’s a
modal response where you have an increase in height, or an
increase in plant growth or flowering up to a point, and then
that starts to reverse as it gets more and more concentrated.
And that’s the kind of plant growth response you might see
when you’re using a plant growth hormone or some other kind
of bioactive material. That was the early evidence that led us
to believe that plant growth regulators may be at least a part of
the story. And the work that Rola has done recently indicates
that it does seem to be part of the story. There are still the
beneficial microorganisms, the nutrient availability effects…
Soil ecology is wonderfully complex. There’s not one thing
going on, there are hundreds of things going on. The trick
ends up being trying to find the half dozen or three or two
most important factors in any particular situation.
CC: We invited Ron Alexander, a well-informed compost
marketer who attended the Vermicomposting Workshop held
in Portland in February 1999, to share his observations about
where he thought vermicompost marketing needed to go. He
said that vermicompost research and marketing is today,
where compost marketing was about 15 years ago. He said
that what is needed is more research data that can be shown to
customers. Do we have enough research papers to show to
potential users of castings, or are more needed?
SS: I guess that’s one of the things that I’m starting to find
out. From my perspective there’s plenty of scientific evidence
that there’s something going on that may be of value. And
that even extends to work that [Dr.] Jim Metzger [Horticulture
Dept. at OSU] has done with graduate students that indicates
that the economics of using worm castings in a commercial
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Dr. Scott Subler
production setting can be favorable for a number of reasons.
And this is at a pretty good price for castings. I think there’s
enough evidence like that to get people’s attention. But, you
know, growers are pretty conservative people. It takes an
awful lot for them, if they’re even in a marginally successful
production system, to get them to change that. I think the best
way to get people to start to accept the value of castings is
simply to convince them to try it. It’s something you can’t
quantify. But it’s been my experience that 75% or 80% of the
time, when you give somebody some of these materials to
work with, castings of one sort or another, people come back
believers. And that’s what motivates me and reconfirms that
we’re on the right track here. Because the value is really
there. Even if they’re skeptical, if they’ll give it a try, they
won’t come back and say, “My plants are doing a little bit
better,” or “it was like the MiracleGro,” they usually come
back pretty excited about it. And I think that’s what carries it.
So if there’s enough scientific evidence to get to people who
are willing to take the risk to try it…that’s kind of where I got
antsy or frustrated. What I’m trying to do now is to talk to
people who actually have to grow things. I say, “Hey look,
we did this and this study. This points to a real positive
effect. We think it works like this. But you know your
production systems better than we do. You know what’s
going to be of value to you better than we do. So you try it
and see whether or not you think it has some value for you.”
My role is to provide some guidance as to how they might
best use it. Generally it’s not a whole lot of guidance. People
who know how to grow stuff know how to do that a lot better
than I do. So it’s just getting in there and letting them use it.
I think, fairly quickly, you get a lot of believers. The problem
then is being able to come up with the goods when they ask
for it again. We’ve been using some material with some of
the biggest berry producers in the country in Whatcom
County. They’re trying it, potato growers are trying it, and
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In Their Own Words
we’ve got it into commercial greenhouses that are excited
about it. Some of these things move kind of slowly. You get
a professional agronomist used to N-P-K as the paradigm, if
he sees something, even if it’s positive, they don’t understand
it, it still makes them a little hesitant. So having some science
behind it really helps. But I think that’s the way to do it. Just
give it away. Let people see for themselves. Let them decide
if there’s value there or not.
CC: You have first-hand experience with vermicomposts
created from various parent feedstocks:
pig-waste
vermicompost, food waste vermicompost, and vermicomposts
from cattle, cardboard, and other sources (biosolids?). From a
marketing as well as scientific point of view, are you yet at
the point where you can recommend a “best source”
vermicompost for all treatments? Are there some species of
plants that do better on vermicompost while other species are
less affected?
SS: The simple answer is I don’t think there’s any such
thing. There are all sorts of different uses and I don’t think
there’s any “one size fits all.” And I don’t think you can rank
different castings from best to worst, necessarily, because that
all depends on your use. Some materials are great for
mulches or great for spreading on vineyards, and other
materials might be better for using in seed propagation,
germination, and cuttings, in a real intensive greenhouse
environment. From work that we’ve done at Ohio State with
Jim Metzger, even what mix you put it in, if you put it in a
peat-perlite mix versus a coir-perlite mix, it might respond
differently and it depends on what species you’re using. It
ends up being one of these things scientists love to qualify.
But it really depends on how you need to use it. I’ve seen all
sorts of materials do extremely well under certain situations,
and other materials do well only in other specific situations.
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Dr. Scott Subler
Not to say that some perform, on average, better than others.
The material from separated pig solids, at the time we worked
with that at Ohio State, it really was a good performer. It
consistently did better than other materials, indicating that
there are some qualities you want to have that tend to be good
in a lot of different circumstances. It’s tough to look at some
castings and make any kind of real judgment, unless you’re a
genius or a sorcerer or something. You can’t just look at this
material and say, “Yeah, it’s good,” or “It’s not good.” And
even if you look at the nutrient analysis, I think I made this
point in the article, nutrient analyses don’t really give you
much predictive information. If you want to look at the
biological stuff, sort of the soil foodweb stuff, well, I don’t
think that has anything but really vague predictive value
anyway. So we can’t really test the material in any way for a
specific application other than using it in that application. So
the best test for whether this stuff is going to be good for
something or not, is to simply to try it in that application and
stop guessing. And so I don’t think that one material is going
to be good for every application. Something that’s real
detrimental to the compost industry is that it’s all compost.
When there are really good composts and there are really
crappy composts, but the impression of value comes from the
lowest common denominator. I think that a lot of good
composts are way under-valued simply because there are so
many more crummy composts that people just have to unload.
That gives the market the impression that it doesn’t have
much value. But in commercial environments the economics
of using compost is favorable, and even more so with worm
castings. So I think what we’re gong to find is that there’s
going to be all kinds of “flavors” or “varieties” of castings,
each good for a particular set of applications. There may be
one or two that are superior overall, but I’m not convinced
that that’s going to be the case.
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In Their Own Words
CC: Let’s say that you become wildly successful in
stimulating demand for vermicompost, so much so that
demand exceeds supply. First, is this even a realistic
projection, and second, if it is, then what might happen to fill
the demand?
SS: I think it would be a strategic mistake to try to get
demand too far ahead of supply in a new product category like
this. A lot of people don’t know much about worm castings
or they may know about them but they’re not that familiar
with them. If there was a lot of hype and everybody wanted
them and there was no supply, I think people would then not
think about them so much any more. You can develop too
much without being able to deliver the goods, I think then the
demand will come back down again. But, assuming that
there’s enough to go out there, and people really love it and
they want more and more, I think there are no real obstacles
out there to lots of people getting into the business or to
people who are in the business right now expanding to meet
that demand. If the demand for worm castings at $1.00 a ton,
it makes no sense for anybody to get into the business. If the
demand is for good quality worm castings at a much better
value, that would indicate that people could make a
reasonable return on any kind of capital investment they
wanted to put in.
CC: You’re in a unique position to be marketing products,
bridging the gap between university research and field
application. Do your future plans include marketing the
product you produce, marketing products produced by others,
consulting, or some combination of these?
SS: Some combination of these is already happening. The
objective is to try to get the value of castings to people who
can use it and who can appreciate. And to stimulate demand
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Dr. Scott Subler
in that way. In order to accomplish that objective, I think all
three of those, initially, might be necessary. Just in terms of
the people that I’m working with, I think our talents might lie
in the marketing, rather in the production end of things.
Because I’m fortunate to be working with people who have a
lot of experience in marketing to consumers as well as
business-to-business marketing. And because of what I do as
an educator and as a guy who gets up and talks to people over
and over again, it’s really bringing information to people and
educating them about how castings have been used and how
they might be useful. I see that as my role, and really, if you
look at that, that’s a marketing function. And that’s where the
fun is for me. I can sit and talk about scientific details in a
room full of scientists. And they’ll be bored and I’ll be bored.
I’d rather talk to the people who are much interested in using
what I have to say. So why don’t I spend my time getting in
front of them and sharing what I know rather than waiting for
someone else to do that.
CC: There are a number of individuals who are fascinated by
the reports of vermicomposting’s potential and are looking for
a way to become involved. Given that such an individual
possesses a certain minimum level of commitment and a
desire to work with soils and plants, what course of action
would you recommend?
SS: Do your homework. Evaluate your commitment to what
you’re about to do. Find people who are already doing it and
don’t try to re-invent the wheel. I see a lot of people being
real secretive about what they’re doing as if there is some
astounding technological magic bullet. I think that people
will be a lot better off if they talk to others who already in it.
What I’ve been doing, and what I realize is that a lot of people
have been around for a long time whom I can learn a lot from.
That would be a part of it. The other would be to realize that
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In Their Own Words
just like any other business, it takes a serious capital
investment, it takes a serious personal investment, and takes
an awful lot of hard work. It goes back to the little glib
statement, that if they just want to make some money on a
sure thing, go buy an auto-lube franchise, and they’re bound
to make a little bit of money. This is not a get-rich-quick
business. There are some opportunities here, but those
opportunities come with huge risks, and the only way to
realize those opportunities is through extra effort. It’s not an
easy way to make money--it’s a hard way to make money.
160
Chapter Twelve
Bruce R. Eastman
Orange County, Florida Environmental Protection
Bruce R. Eastman is Assistant Manager of
the
Orange
County
Environmental
Protection Division in Orlando, Florida. He
is also the principal investigator in a
USEPA-funded pilot project that was
recently conducted to determine whether
vermicomposting biosolids would achieve
pathogen destruction to meet Class ‘A’ stabilization
requirements. In our interview, Mr. Eastman answered
questions about biosolids processing, how he became aware
of the possibilities of vermicomposting this material, and the
technology used in his research. Mr. Eastman also commented
about earthworms and heavy metal uptake, the use of
continuous flow reactor technology, the necessity for precomposting, viability of weed seeds, the coming “revolution”
in biosolids processing, the potential dangers involved in
killing earthworms, and marketing the process and product.
This interview appeared in the February 2000 and April 2000
issues of Casting Call.
Casting Call: In your research paper soon to be published,
“The Effectiveness of Vermiculture in Human Pathogen
Reduction for USEPA Class A Stabilization,” you drew
attention to the seriousness of the issue of biosolids disposal.
There are “inherent environmental and health hazards of
unstabilized human waste [that] can be seen in the third world
nations.
Rampant diseases that have debilitating
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In Their Own Words
consequences are common for people living in these
countries.”
Additionally, you stated that “Disposal of
biosolids has become a national concern,” for Americans.
Can you offer any particular instances that illustrate the harm
that’s been done or the cause for alarm by regulators?
Bruce R. Eastman: I think the overall attitude of the
agencies and the passage of the more stringent rules and
regulations, such as 503, and here in the state of Florida the
rewriting of 62-640, and local governments writing even more
stringent local codes, is definitely an example of the national
concern. I think it’s pretty obvious that we have medical
concerns for untreated wastes that are pretty common, like I
said [in the paper], in third world countries. But also I went
on to say that’s not necessarily the case here in the United
States. Obviously, I think, our system of treatment for
wastewater residuals is far superior to most. But the public
still perceives the land application of domestic wastewater
residuals as a negative. I’ve run up against this for the past
ten years dealing with the public in my job. It’s been a very
difficult job to try to educate the public that the re-use of
biosolids is really a very environmentally sound practice.
There are some problems that still need to be addressed
though. But I think those are mostly regional situations and
problems, part of that being the use of food service sludges or
grease-trap pumpings for land application. We recently
prohibited the land application of grease unless they go to a
Class A stabilization methodology. One of the reasons is that
surface application of food service sludges, even when they’re
blended with domestic wastewater residuals, has a tendency to
destroy the crop that’s being putting on them, i.e., mostly
pasture grasses and sods. There have been some studies done.
One of the more outstanding ones that I recall was done in
Maryland, I think by their department of Environmental
Protection, where they were using greases for soil
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Bruce R Eastman
augmentation. But they were doing injection. They were
letting the greases break down through microbial action after
it was injected into the soils. That’s not the practice here in
Florida. We found that it’s really not a sound method.
CC: Just to recap then, on this issue of human health
concerns about treated wastewater residuals, have there been
any reports of individuals coming in contact with this material
where they have been compromised in their health in any
way?
BRE: No, there have not [been any incidents] of the general
public. I think that is due to the rules and regulations that
have been passed to restrict public access to these areas.
However, I can tell you that we actually had one of our
employees come down with shigellosis [a form of dysentery]
twice, who has worked in the sludge fields. A number of
years back, the rules weren’t as explicit about pathogen
stabilization. At one time all they had to do to meet the regs
was just to throw some lime in the pump truck. And that was
considered sufficient. Of course we realize now that that’s
not necessarily the case.
CC: How did you first become aware of the possibility that
earthworms might reduce pathogen levels of biosolids?
BRE: It was purely by accident. I met a gentleman by the
name of Mr. Barnell Logue who is the President of the
American Earthworm Company. He was, unbeknownst to
me, using wastewater residuals to raise earthworms. I found
out about it from my regulatory angle and I had to inform him
that he could not do that. It started out that we were actually
going to take enforcement action. And he advised me of what
he knew, from his years of experience. And from that, it
sparked my interest. So that’s when I started looking into it
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In Their Own Words
and doing more research and pulling up as many papers as I
could on the subject. And I believe that it was [Dr. Roy]
Hartenstein’s [studies] I originally found that suggested that it
might be useful. From that point that’s how our project
actually came about.
CC: There’s some irony here in that you were about to
proceed against someone in a regulatory fashion and wound
up learning something instead.
BRE: Absolutely. And I think [there should be] the old ‘pat
on the back’ to our agency. I think that it’s a credit to us that
we were able to take that route, instead of being so stiffnecked about the whole thing.
CC:
Your
field test was
conducted in
an enclosed
structure with
biosolids
spread out in
windrows.
Eisenia fetida
earthworms
were supplied by Mr. Barnell Logue of the American
Earthworm Company who kept them in Florida peat prior to
their inoculation in the windrows. (As an aside, your paper
mentions, “Slower reductions may have occurred because the
earthworms already had a food source in the peat.”) Would
you recommend staying with the same technology (windrows)
for wastewater treatment facilities?
BRE: No, I do not advise it. For very small operations,
that’s probably a perfectly acceptable method. But for larger
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Bruce R Eastman
facilities, and I think we should kind of draw a line here
somewhere, you know, what size facility are we talking
about? The City of Ocoee that we’re dealing with right now
is a three million gallon-a-day facility. They’re currently only
operating at about a million [gallons] a day. And they
produce somewhere in the area of 42-45 wet tons of solids a
week. With that in mind, we have approximately a tenth of an
acre that we have in windrows. It’s difficult, at best, to
control the quality of the end product, the castings. I think a
more feasible method is to use some type of reactor. And
then, there’s the question after, of having to go into some sort
of a curing process. In windrows, the worms tend to leave
some food behind; some of the residuals [are left] unstabilized
in the lower portions of the windrow, as you’re adding food to
the top of them. It’s a timing matter. Now, the wastewater
plant, when they have the waste, they’ve got a waste [product]
then and there—they can’t wait forever. So a vermiculturist
has to be able to take that material immediately. If the worms
have not worked the windrows properly, because of
fluctuating populations or whatever, it doesn’t make any sense
to go ahead and feed them, because they’ll leave the food
source that they’re in at that point and lump in the top of the
windrow in the new food source. So we don’t get good
standardization throughout the whole mass of biosolids.
Whereas with a system like Dr. Edwards’s wedge system, or
with different reactors [that have] a continuous feeding
process, worm populations tend to be more stable. That’s, I
think, the real key to being able to produce a stabilized
product and a consistent quality product. That’s certainly my
recommendation.
CC: Have you been able to see any of Dr. Edwards’
continuous flow reactors in use?
165
In Their Own Words
BRE: No, I haven’t, other than seen diagrams. But I have
seen some others. There’s a gentleman here in Gainesville
Florida, by the name of Harry Windle. He has one called the
Worm Gin. It’s a very ingenious machine. And it seems to
work quite well. He has a couple of them throughout the
country. One of them is up in Maine. He’s got another one
somewhere in Montana that I know of, and several around the
state. And they seem to be working quite well so far.
CC: If you went to that technology, with biosolids, would
you need to use some sort of bulking agent?
BRE: No. We have not found that you need to add any kind
of bulking agent at all to the biosolids. The worms seem to
get along in it quite well.
CC: In Fallbrook California, where they were
vermicomposting biosolids in the late 1980s, they were
mixing biosolids with straw. They seemed to be concerned
with keeping the material properly aerated for the
earthworms. In your experience, if you build up the pile
height, wouldn’t it increase the likelihood of going anaerobic
or getting too compacted?
BRE: The rows never get very high. They only get about
eighteen to twenty inches high. So you never really have that
much material on top of it to compress it down. The worms
are keeping that top six or better inches aerated. We haven’t
had too much problem with that process. I can certainly see
that if they start getting into larger piles, that would be really
kind of counterproductive.
CC: The biosolids were taken off a belt press and applied
with manure spreaders over the windrows at 85% moisture
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Bruce R Eastman
content (15% solids). How was this ratio determined? Did
the high moisture content pose any leachate problems?
BRE: That has to do strictly with the operations of the
wastewater treatment facility.
[That this ratio seemed
optimum for earthworms] was pure coincidence. We never
did that on purpose. Actually, EPA required us to have 1520% solids material to work with. The belt press at the City
of Ocoee was brand new and works very well. They’re able
to get a very good product out of it. That’s what the engineers
told us we were averaging—was 15%. Of course the process
goes on—we do have a lot of volatilization of water off from
the rows. We have to continue to water the rows, even after
they’ve been laid down.
CC: When would you do your first watering after the
material was first applied off the belt press?
BRE: Usually within a week. I think Mr. Logue waters the
rows every week. A lot of his work is done just by years of
knowledge. He doesn’t go out and measure moisture content.
We were doing some of that—we have some of that
information in house.
CC: So, did the initial high moisture content of the biosolids
pose any leachate problems?
BRE: No. As a matter of fact, in the initial pilot project we
put down a clay liner with a sand filter on top of it. We had it
slope down to a corner of the pad, and plumbed it in so that it
would go into a recapture bucket. We never had any leachate
recovery at all.
167
In Their Own Words
CC: The frequency for adding water to the windrows would
depend upon the climate of a particular region. It looks like,
in your case, it was necessary to add water regularly.
BRE: It gets pretty hot, especially during the summer. It’s
also very humid. Of course we have rainstorms every
afternoon, in general, during the rainy season. So it can get
very wet at times. But the residuals, they hold water very
well. They just don’t seem to leach out [liquid] very much. I
might be more concerned if we were using ground-up green
waste like garbage and such. It probably would not retain the
water as well. We might very well have a leachate problem
with that type of material.
CC: In a report from the pilot phase of this project, (“Worm
Treatment Produces ‘Class A’ Biosolids,” BioCycle, October
1996), earthworms had been expected to consume the
equivalent of their body weight in biosolids per day.
Surprisingly, earthworms consumed an even greater amount
of feedstock, for it was said “the worms actually ate upwards
of two times their body weight each day which required that
the project be stopped at 68 days, rather than the full 90 days
initially proposed.” Now, in the final report of your two-year
test project, the “official” calculated consumption rate for
earthworms is stated as “1.5 times their biomass every 24
hours.” A 1:7 ratio of earthworm biomass to biosolids was
suggested for a weekly rate. Are you convinced that an
earthworm consumption rate for biosolids of one to 1.5 times
their body weight per day can be sustained indefinitely?
BRE: No, it can’t be. These numbers that we put together
were strictly artificial. In order to have a balanced ratio of
worms, as Dr. Edwards and I discussed a number of times, we
believe that an ideal ratio is probably somewhere around two
pounds of worms to one cubic foot of material. Somewhere in
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Bruce R Eastman
the area of 1:10 or 1:12 ratio [biomass of worms to biosolids].
And that simply has to do with reproductive rates in worms.
CC: At what rate would you add feedstocks? Once you had
a system inoculated with two pounds of earthworms per
square foot of area, what amounts and how frequently would
you add to that area?
BRE: You could probably go ahead and start feeding every
two weeks and wind up with good stabilization. We were
trying to push this at an accelerated rate. Number One, we
wanted to get the experiment done as quickly as we could.
The longer it took, the more money we had to spend. So
finances were part of the problem. And, at that time, we
weren’t necessarily convinced, when we first started out, that
you couldn’t sustain that type of ratio. But we found, as we
were going along, that especially with the windrow method,
that that’s probably unrealistic. You wind up with ‘dead
spots’ in the windrows. The worms, for whatever reason,
don’t want to be there—migrated to other areas, and such.
The other thing, that kind of skewed some of our ideas was,
that Mr. Logue was also trying to harvest worms for sale
during the process—and you cannot do that. You’ve got to
leave the worms alone. It was really rather difficult. We put
these numbers in here because we showed artificially, that if
we inoculate our rows with those amounts of worms, this is
what we get in this period of time. But naturally and
realistically, that’s probably not what is going to work for
people. Again, we go back to that ‘two pounds of worms per
square foot.’ Probably every couple of weeks—feeding time.
CC: And how would you calculate how much you would
feed?
BRE: Again, you would have to apply very thin layers.
169
In Their Own Words
CC: But do you weigh it? Is it a volume measurement?
BRE: Well, not by weight, simply by having people put the
residuals on top of the bed. And the best thing is, in the area
of two to three inches at a time—you could probably go up to
five to six inches feeding per time. But ideally, it’s only two
to three inches at a time. It is going to be a much slower
process than what we originally hoped for.
CC: Well, based on that, if we don’t know the weight of
worms there, or if we don’t measure the weight that you’re
applying, we really can’t know for certain, at this stage, what
rate per day the worm consumes.
BRE: I have to go back to references in other papers that I’ve
read. It was stated there that they believed that worms could
consume up to two times their weight in a 24-hour period.
And, of course, our pilot indicated that that might be so.
Now, do they always consume that amount or not? I don’t
know. Honestly, I really and truly don’t know.
CC: What was the greatest length of time that you sustained
the additions of fresh material?
BRE: In the project itself, we never fed the spiked project. It
was a one-time turnaround. We gave them a definite amount
of food and simply put them into it. That’s why the numbers
were artificial.
CC: So it really hasn’t been demonstrated on a field scale.
Going back to the papers you might have read, please correct
me if I’m wrong here, but that might have been done in a
laboratory situation, where they might have consumed two
times their weight in a petri dish.
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Bruce R Eastman
BRE: And they may not do that in the field—that’s very true.
The other thing is, what is their food source? If they have a
food source like biosolids, they have a large amount of
bacteria, which is actually what they’re eating, are they going
to consume more than what they would if they were in a food
source that was not as nutrient-rich in bacteria?
CC: Aren’t there different stages in wastewater treatment in
which the biosolids are sometimes better suited for
vermicomposting and, also, stages where they are not wellsuited?
BRE: Anaerobic biosolids would not be suitable. What we’d
like to do is to try using some solids from the bottom of the
clarifier. I don’t know that they’d have enough oxygen in
them to sustain the worms, or if the worms would even go
into it. We haven’t tried that yet. The biosolids we used were
aerobically digested. Prior to that the biosolids were in an
anaerobic situation at the bottom of the clarifier. We’d like to
try to see if there’s enough oxygen in that material to sustain
the worms. It may be and it may not. It may require some
aeration. I believe, personally, that the worms would
probably do quite well in it. But we have not actually tried it.
CC: In conducting your field test, you began by spiking both
the test and control windrows with pathogens and helminth
ova eggs to establish a baseline. Can you explain why this
was done? Was it necessary to increase the amount of
pathogens from those already present?
BRE:
Normally speaking, our wastewater treatment
facilities, especially our publicly owned wastewater treatment
facilities, do a very good job at stabilization. They’re very
effective—but at a great cost. Of course that’s where we
171
In Their Own Words
believe vermicomposting can help—by reducing that cost.
When we received the residuals, that’s why we had to spike
them, for two reasons. Number One, EPA wanted us to show
a three- to fourfold reduction. That was very difficult to do—
we already had “B” Class residuals. So we had to spike them
extremely high, in order to be able to show that reduction rate.
And again, by doing that, we also proved that we probably
could stabilize residuals directly from the bottom of a clarifier
that had not had any type of aerobic digestive process
performed on them. Dr. Edwards and I discussed this as
well—EPA was extremely concerned about pathogen content
and pathogen indicators in aerobically digested residuals that
we think are probably something they just shouldn’t be
concerned about.
CC: Yes, I heard from Dr. Edwards that you had spent quite
a few dollars to obtain helminth ova to spike the windrows.
BRE: We spent $5,000—it was the biggest expense of the
project other than the actual analysis. And it took us forever
to get them. If it’s that rare and that difficult, why do you use
them as an indicator? It would seem to me that EPA would
want to use something else that’s a little more common as an
indicator.
CC: Let’s talk about heavy metal uptake by earthworms,
something your study did not examine. Biosolids are known
to contain fairly high levels of heavy metals in some
instances.
USEPA has federal regulations specifically
limiting land application of biosolids with annual pollutant
loading rate guidelines. Do you plan to research heavy metal
uptake by earthworms in future investigations? If it were
found that earthworm activity in biosolids not only sanitized
this material but also reduced heavy metal concentrations, is it
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Bruce R Eastman
possible new guidelines (for pollutant loading rates) could be
written for vermi-processed biosolids?
BRE: I’m not really sure. I think it’s a little early to call that.
However, we actually did do, as a sidebar, some work on
metals, in the original pilot project. There was another partner
who was working with American Earthworm Company. Out
of curiosity, they did an initial metals analysis on the
residuals, and found that there was up to a forty to fifty
percent reduction in the metals content. They tried to do an
extraction on worm flesh and they were never able to
determine where the metals went. I think that probably has
something to do with lab failure, using improper or incorrect
methodology for extraction. Based on that, we started doing
some work with the EPA on the reduction or fate of lead in
lead-contaminated soils. And we actually wound up going out
and picking up some soils from a Superfund site. We did
some bench tests. We also did some bench tests on some soils
that came from Puerto Rico that had high lead contamination.
And again, in those tests we demonstrated between a 30% to a
50% reduction in overall lead content. We were able to
determine a percentage of that metal in the worm flesh as
well—this time we did a slightly different extraction method.
However, we were still not finding all of the lead. There was
somewhere around 15% that we did not account for. We have
no idea exactly as to where it was going. There have been
some suggestions that we should do some enzyme studies and
several other different approaches. I just recently sent back a
letter to EPA in Washington and suggested that we try another
method to determine the overall metal content in the worm
flesh, and not try to do any extractions, but simply sample the
entire worm flesh. Now, what is actually happening to the
metals? I believe that when we’re finished with all this, we’re
going to find that the worms are not really using this metal—
they may be bio-accumulating certain amounts of it, but I
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In Their Own Words
think it’s going to be very small amounts. What we are going
to find is that the worms are actually harvesting the metal.
And once they reach a point where the metal content becomes
to a certain point inside them it’s going to do one of two
things. They’re either going to start extracting it in their
castings, or they may wind up reaching lethal doses. Now the
way I see this possibly working is, the metals are extracted,
and when we find out what that level is that the worms are
able to tolerate, when they reach that point, you harvest the
worms out. Then you put them in a clean substrate, with no
food source or a very small food source, and then force them
to go into a fasting period. At that point, we found that they’ll
give off a considerable amount of the metals that they
ingested. For this particular process, I would say that what we
take is a ton of contaminated soil, we vermicompost it and
harvest the worms out of it, cause them to fast and cast off the
metal, and we reduce that down to 100 pounds of waste, as
opposed to one ton of waste. Basically, what we’re doing is
we’re using the worms to “mine” the metals for us. But
would that work in a continual feed reactor process for metal
contents in biosolids? I think it’s too early to know. My gut
tells me if worms in continuous feed reactors do reduce
metals, it’s not going to be a significant amount. This is
perhaps where windrows or Dr. Edwards’ wedge method may
be more appropriate.
CC: This research into heavy metals reduction sounds like it
might be the New Frontier for earthworm studies, once the
pathogen reduction issue has been resolved. But there’s
always the question of whether you can take these findings to
a regulatory agency and satisfy them such that they’ll approve
this as a viable method.
BRE: Precisely. There are going to have to be standards.
We were hoping that that was going to be part of this project
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Bruce R Eastman
as well, but it was a little bit more for us to handle than we
were able to. I think that’s going to be another step in this
whole thing. We are working on this right now. We finished
the initial bench tests and have reported that information to
EPA. What we’re doing right now is waiting for more money
to continue on with the project. We’re going to expand out
and do a larger number of samples so we can get a better
statistical analysis and determine what those levels of metals
are that earthworms are able to obtain. We’re pretty sure we
have the money, we just haven’t heard back from them. I
have been in contact with them via telephone, and I’m assured
they’re very interested in the project and they want to assist
us.
CC: Would you go back to the windrow system or would you
look for doing this in a reactor?
BRE: Actually, for this portion of the test, it would be mostly
in the lab. It wouldn’t be in the field very much. If we can
demonstrate that we can recapture metals, there has been talk
that they’d like to enter into a pilot project in the field with us
at the Superfund site. They actually wanted us to do a pilot
project. But we were not prepared at that point. We simply
did not have enough data to support the expenditure of monies
for a pilot that size. I was uneasy about it. I said, “We’ve got
to go back to the lab and do some more tests.” And I think,
based on this next round of tests, it will give us the
information we need, to determine whether we are ready to go
ahead with a pilot project or not.
CC: Can you see yourself working in a project down the line,
using reactor technology?
BRE: Absolutely. As a matter of fact, if I were to do a pilot
in the field of metals recapture, it would be with a reactor. It
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In Their Own Words
would not be with windrows. I’m not sure exactly which
reactor I’d use. Another possibility would be Dr. Edwards’
wedge system which works very well.
CC:
A much-debated topic in vermicomposting is the
necessity of pre-composting feedstocks (manure, biosolids) to
achieve pathogen kill before feeding the material to
earthworms. You seem confident that your study finally
settles this issue. You wrote, “A difference from other lowtechnology vermicomposting projects is the elimination of
pre-composting. Until recently, this step was thought to be
necessary to eliminate pathogens before adding earthworms.
However, this project confirms that the earthworms remove
the pathogens from the biosolids during vermicomposting
making the pre-composting unnecessary.
The use of
earthworms to vermicompost biosolids exceeded even the
initial experimental expectations for pathogen reduction.”
Are you saying that vermicomposting should be classed as a
PFRP (Process to Further Reduce Pathogens), a federal
regulation that now mandates only a time and temperature
requirement?
BRE: Yes, I am. I believe it will. I believe it can. The precomposting question is not going to go away, whether
vermicomposting is classed as a PFRP process or not. One of
the reasons for that is going to be quality of material. I think
the big problem of the vermicomposted materials today is the
weed seed problem. If we’re ever going to be able to market
vermicomposted materials, especially manures and biosolids,
the weed seed problem is going to have to be addressed. And
that’s where pre-composting may have to be used for it. But
it does not have to be used for pathogen destruction.
CC: Do you see weed seeds in biosolids?
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Bruce R Eastman
BRE: Yes. Mostly tomato and melon seeds. You cannot
destroy tomato seeds—they’re unbelievable. Which may
preclude pre-composting in biosolids, specifically because we
may be able to stockpile and cure the castings to a time
beyond the viability of the seeds. I’ve talked to Dr. Subler
also, as far as manures go, that’s probably not going to be a
viable case. Because some weed seeds are viable up to two,
three, four, five, ten years. So you wouldn’t be able to
stockpile long enough. There’s a much bigger problem with
animal manures in that regard. But we’re going to have to do
some more work in that field, specifically with biosolids.
CC: In the final paragraph of your paper, you enthuse,
“Vermicomposting will revolutionize biosolids processing.”
At this, everyone who has a stake in the world of
vermiculture/vermicomposting will surely stand up and shout,
“Amen!” Yet, Ed Green in Lufkin Texas had difficulty in
gathering support for his operation in 1980 and the Fallbrook,
California project conducted a successful pilot study of
vermicomposting biosolids, but did not endure, largely due to
the impinging local residential development in the late 1980s.
In the twenty years since Hartenstein’s research at SUNY,
biosolids vermicomposting in the U.S. has not attracted much
attention, but for a few “pilot projects.” Are you so confident
that, once this news hits municipal wastewater managers
throughout the country, that a genuine revolution in biosolids
processing will take place? Should we begin taking worms
down to our local water treatment facilities to help get them
started?
BRE: I wouldn’t be heading down there right now, but I
believe that it [the ‘revolution’] is going to come. Number
One, there’s been a number of steps taken by groups in this
country to try to increase recycling efforts of all types of
waste streams. And I think it’s only natural that biosolids and
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In Their Own Words
greenwaste especially be part of that overall process. I think
eventually people will understand and realize the benefits of
vermicomposted materials. With the burgeoning and growing
organic agriculture industry, there will be more of a call for
the materials. It’s going to be some time before we can
convince Professional Engineers in the wastewater industry
that they need to tear down their digesters and start building
vermicomposting reactors. But it is a process that is going to
happen. How soon? I think that’s going to depend on who
actually spearheads this. Is it going to be government? Is it
going to be private industry? We’ve got to find a Bill Gates
of vermicomposting. Somebody who can go out there and
market it. If we find that person who can sell the product,
after that it’s all incidental. And I think that it is going to
happen. I wouldn’t mind being a part of that—I don’t know if
I’m that person…[laughter]…but I certainly would like to be
a part of it.
CC: It’s interesting that you said a “person who can sell the
product,” but from your work, it’s selling the process, because
what you’ve demonstrated is that it’s cost effective, compared
to the cost of building a wastewater treatment plant that
complies with more stringent regulations. So it’s a cost
savings benefit, even if the castings had no value.
BRE: Well, that’s true. However, you still wind up with the
age-old problem of recyclables, or recycled materials. When
we first began recycling our plastics and glass and papers, we
had mountains and mountains and mountains of used product,
all over the nation, but there were no markets for them. It
wasn’t until those markets started opening up that we started
to move the materials. I know for a fact here in Florida that
we’re in the same situation with compost—especially from
wastewater treatment facilities. That I can go in and save on
the process end a certain amount of money to stabilize their
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Bruce R Eastman
residuals by vermicomposting as opposed to digestion—the
question still remains, “What do I do with the product?”
When you can sell that product, that’s where the real money
is. That’s what’s going to make people millionaires, and
that’s what’s going to motivate them to push it. Just to save
the municipality operating costs is never going to create the
dynasty for something huge. It will not happen that way.
CC: But sometimes, waste managers consider only the
composting process. Some couldn’t care less about what
compost does in the soil, because they don’t have an interest
in soil fertility. Their principal concern is, “We’ve got to
stabilize this volatile material.” And so, while the composting
process makes sense for some waste managers, they’ll just
take the product and use it as Alternate Daily Cover or give it
away for free. It’s only after addressing the initial problem of
stabilization that some consider its usefulness. So I could see
a sort of two-step process happening with biosolids and
vermicomposting, where you first sell the process concept to
wastewater managers as a cost savings method. Then you
tack on the added bonus that this material has value in and of
itself as well.
BRE: Yes. And I don’t advocate that that should not be
done. This may very well have to go that way again. But
hopefully, somewhere along the line, someone is going to
stand up and be able to market the product for what it really
is.
CC: Okay. We know that we’ve got “safe” biosolids from
your wastewater treatment facility thanks to Eisenia fetida
earthworms. What is the next step to be taken? Will it be
important to establish the value of your biosolids earthworm
castings as a growth medium? Your paper mentioned,
“Earthworm casts can be marketed with little additional
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In Their Own Words
processing.” Do you think there’s going to be a future in
marketing castings from biosolids?
BRE: Yes. I think that biosolids and green waste [castings]
are going to be the two most marketable products. I think that
a lot of it is going to wind up being able to go to the organic
agricultural growers.
CC: Are any of the people who grow organic foods going to
object that this parent material is biosolids?
BRE: I wouldn’t think that they would. I would certainly
hope that they would see the product for what it is—a very
useful, organic material. The Chinese have been using it for
centuries—obviously, not the way we would like to use it.
But I think the product itself has certainly proven its value in
other countries. So I think we have to get over the stigmatism
that it is human waste, and see it for it really is—a very useful
product—especially after being vermicomposted. A number
of organic growers already know the value of
vermicomposted materials—not just the organic growers
either. I spoke with some individuals here recently who are
involved in the nursery business. They’re very enthused
about it. They’re excited. They like the idea. They realize
the benefits. But of course they are very careful individuals.
They want to kind of take a “step back and wait and see”
attitude.
CC: What does an Environmental Protection Division
Assistant Manager tell a group of people who grow plants?
BRE: I gave them a presentation that I presented down in
New Orleans at the Waste Environment Federation
Conference in October. I basically went over our project,
both pilot project and full-scale operation. And then, of
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Bruce R Eastman
course, I told them what I felt were the benefits of using
earthworm castings—because of plant growth studies that
have taken place, mostly by Dr. Edwards, but also some here
in the state of Florida that are currently being done on pasture
grasses by the University of Florida. As a matter of fact
they’re using my castings in their Agricultural Extension
Center. We’ve proven that earthworm castings can grow
plants larger, quicker, have higher yield of product—fruit,
mass, fiber—from using the castings. The castings have a
number of binding sites which help to retain moisture
therefore helping to reduce the possibilities of nitrogen
leaching that you get with chemical fertilizers, as well as
creating actinomycete bacteria in castings which continue to
produce slow-release nitrogen so they get more “bang for
their buck” over a period of time, as well as apparent plant
pest antagonist properties that castings appear to have.
Hopefully that would help these individuals to use fewer
pesticides on their crops and wind up actually getting higher
yields. There have been a number of studies done in that
regard. For example, in Bangalore, India, grapes were
fertilized with two tons of vermicompost, per acre each year,
for five years. This increased yields up to 15 tons per acre,
which were higher than yields using top quality conventional
fertilizer. So it’s there, the evidence is there, it’s indisputable.
We simply have to educate them.
CC: So how did the Florida Nurserymen receive this
message?
BRE: They were thrilled! They were very excited about it. I
had a number of them come up to me and talk to me saying
they wanted to get back to me again. There have been some
discussions about possibly doing some pilot studies with some
nursery plants and using some of our castings. So it was a
very positive reception. I was very pleased.
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In Their Own Words
CC: Presently there are just a few individuals in this country
who are aggressively marketing castings and stimulating
demand. Could it happen that as more people begin to talk
about castings that there may not be enough processors to
meet future demand? Do you see this as a potential problem?
BRE: I think because the technology is so simple, it probably
would not be difficult to gear up, to be able to take care of that
demand.
We certainly have the domestic wastewater
residuals available. People’s septic tanks and such—we want
to do some work on septage materials also, not just processed
wastewater residuals. I know those products are there—it’s
pretty astronomical—230,000 metric tons of biosolids were
generated in 1995 alone here in the state of Florida. Most of
that material is simply being land-applied out on pasture
grasses right now. There is a benefit in that. However, if it
were vermicomposted, it would be a greater benefit. But I
think because of the ease of the technology that it probably
wouldn’t take long to gear up. Probably a lot quicker than a
lot of other industries would be able to.
CC: From your perspective, what are the opportunities that
exist today in vermiculture and vermicomposting?
BRE: Currently there’s not the tremendous demand that I
would like to see. But as we spoke of previously, I think the
demand is going to be there. And I think that it’s going to be
incumbent upon educating the industry and someone getting
out there and letting people know that we’ve got this and let’s
do something with it. I’m concerned a little with the misuse
of the whole marketing process and pyramid schemes of the
past. But I do believe that within the next five years or so—I
would like to see it quicker than that—but being realistic, I
think that we’re probably going to see a lot more interest in
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Bruce R Eastman
vermicomposting and I think we’re going to see a lot more
projects. And especially if EPA will accept this methodology
for Class A stabilization, I think that that would have
tremendous impact on the industry as a whole—opening up
doors and creating markets.
CC: Not long ago, when asked why vermicomposting of
biosolids had not caught on in this country, Dr. Clive Edwards
suggested that the reason for this might be due to the risk that
someone might dump a large quantity of insecticide or other
toxic element down the drain. Thus, the danger posed to
earthworms would be great, because a municipal system was
open and would have few safeguards. Is his concern a real
one?
BRE: I think it’s very legitimate. You talked about the
Lufkin, Texas project. It’s my understanding that there was
talk that this actually may have happened there as well—that
[this was] one of the reasons why they had a tremendous dieoff of worms. It was presented as a possibility. But I look at
it like this: If that stuff is going down the drain somewhere in
a municipal system, then I would just as soon have the worm
indicator telling me that those residuals are that toxic—as
opposed to having them spread out on a field somewhere
without knowing. Typically we do not do pesticide scans on
domestic wastewater residuals. We only do what 503 requires
which is just metals and nutrients—that tells us what kind of
heavy industries we have on the collection system of that
structure. But it doesn’t tell us about other types of
contaminants such as pesticides. And those residuals still
have to meet those basic standards. So I believe I would
really rather have vermicomposting as the process than not. I
think that as an indicator, it gives us that type of information
that we need. Then it’s incumbent upon the agencies and the
owners of those facilities, if they find there’s a problem, to
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In Their Own Words
trace that back. There are ways of doing that, absolutely.
Much of our NPDES [National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System] permitting throughout the country today
requires us, as municipalities, to put into place that kind of
investigative work. It is incumbent upon us to trace and
eliminate illicit discharges into our stormwater systems as
well as our wastewater treatment facilities. So the technology
is there to do it. I’m not saying it’s easy, but the technology
is there, and we can do it. It’s like anything in the
enforcement agencies, to find a culprit who is doing
something, once you turn around and you get one or two of
them and administer penalties, as a general rule, the industry
overall tends to come into compliance. I think that’s been
proven a number of times. And it also propagates additional
legislation to close the loopholes where they sometimes fall
through. And, overall, it just makes our systems that much
safer. Again, I think Dr. Edwards has a very legitimate
observation, but I still think that we should go forward. I
think that one of the biggest hurdles to this is that by doing
vermicomposting, it could be perceived as taking business
away from the traditional engineering consultant groups. I
could certainly see where that would be something that they
wouldn’t like. If we can get it accepted by EPA, then it’s
going to be, basically, “We’re in the Market!” And you’re
going to have to go out there and you’re going to have to sell
the process. It’s going to come down to marketing.
184
About the Author
Peter Bogdanov is Director of
VermiCo in Merlin Oregon. As publisher
and editor of the bi-monthly subscription
newsletter Casting Call, he has
interviewed many of the foremost leaders
in the vermiculture industry. Some of
these interviews have been reprinted in the
book In Their Own Words: Interviews with
Vermiculture Experts.
In 1996 Bogdanov published his
first book Commercial Vermiculture and
began the newsletter that now reaches an international subscriber
base. Since 1998 VermiCo has conducted a series of educational
workshops and conferences attracting attendees from across the
United States and around the world. Some of these workshops have
included tours of commercial vermicomposting operations, while
other 2-day seminars have focused on Best Management Practices in
Vermicomposting and include a 400-page manual of instruction.
In the year 2000 VermiCo began producing a series of videos
that introduce viewers to a variety of vermiculture operations, from
the world’s largest outdoor operation, to indoor, mechanized systems
that process tons of organic residuals with earthworms.
VermiCo’s popular website www.vermico.com, features an
assortment of informative subjects and products for visitors of all
interests.
Not a scientist by training, Bogdanov believes that his
graduate degree in history may have helped equip him in reporting
and writing. If history is somehow telling a story, then telling the
story of progress in the use of earthworms in waste and environmental
management calls for a storyteller. This may explain why interviews,
books, newsletters, conferences and videos have been his chosen
media to tell the story.
Modern Alchemy:
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