MyNOKE Organic Earthworms - Southern Worms (Aporrectodea Trapezoides), Blackhead Worms (Aporrectodea Longa), Dung Worms (Lumbricus Rubellus)

Our soil dwelling earthworms are seasonal and will return from holiday in september.

You receive more than 100 of the largest and strongest soil dwelling earthworms - Southern Worm (Aporrectodea trapezoides), Blackhead Worms (Aporrectodea longa) and Dung Worms (Lumbricus rubellus).

The worms are carefully collected by hand from the windrows at the MyNOKE® organic certified worm farm. Once collected they are replaced in their bedding and immediately sent to you, ready to be released into their new habitat - your raised beds or garden beds. The numbers of each earthworm species in your order may vary according to availability.

In an ideal pasture and garden system you would have earthworms representing all three earthworm functional groups (dung, topsoil and deep, see Figure below) so that their activity in the soil can complement each other.

While there are still some pastures, which have no earthworms and would benefit from the addition of all earthworm types, it is common for the deep-burrowing earthworms to be absent from our New Zealand pasture systems.


Figure: The three functional earthworm groups present in our pasture systems. (Source: Schon, Nicole 2015)

The Southern Worm is dark greyish brown in colour, 40 to 90 mm long and lives in the top 20–30 cm of the soil. The Blackhead Worms are larger (90 to 120 mm) than the Southern Worms with a significant dark head and burrow deeper than 1m depending on the soil structure.

As the earthworms burrow they ingest (swallow) soil and eat the organic matter. The soil and organic matter passes through the earthworm’s digestive system. The organic matter is transformed into humus, mixed with the soil, and released as earthworm casting also called vermicast. The worms and the bacteria living in their guts produce plant growth stimulators such as auxins and highly effective humic acids, which stimulates root growth and flowering.

For more information on the types of earthworms download the Earthworms information sheet by Nicole Schon from AgResearch.