Bukan Sekedar KAMUS!

loading...

Soil Fertility

An earthworm's burrow can extend up to 1.5m down into the soil. Burrows help to aerate the soil, improve drainage, and aid root drainage. As earthworms digest organic material they help recycle nutrients, making them more easily available to plants and made the soil fertility increase.

Earthworms are invertebrates, that means they have no bones. The body is made of strong muscles. The earthworm moves by first stretching its body, then contacting it to pull the tail after the head end. To help this it has a pair of bristles, on each segment. The bristles point backwards, so they dig into the soil and act as anchors as the earthworms body moves forward.


Earthworms are eaten by many other animals. Foxes and badgers eat large quantities of worms. On a wet night worms come to the surface, and in these conditions a badger will feast on worms all night, sucking them up like spaghetti. Worms are also preyed on by moles, shrews, hedgehogs and birds such as blackbirds, thrushes and robins. Very small worms are taken by ground beetles, centipedes, frogs and toads. Some people said it's can cured some disease.

I remember When I was a kid, I got a fever. My father brought me to doctor. Doctor said I got Typhus, and hed to opname in Hospital. Long time ago typhus is very danger disease. Most of the pasien if not died in peace they will suffer will hair drop. one of my friend become bald. My father didn't belief to doctor or their medicine. He brought me home as soon as doctor told hom about my sickness. Don't care even when doctor warned him how critis my conditions.

Remembered the housewives tale or because he love me so much, my dear father made his own medician and gave to me. A few days later I'm cured and soon can play around. Only afew years later he reveal the truth what medicien he gave to me at that times. It's a dried earthworm. I'm screamed so loud in disbelief. How can I...eaten worm? the dried one?

But my father told me with proud that I should thanks him because his quick actions so I saved from the great disaster...died or loss my lovely hair. But the dried worm? Even now don't dare to see aworm in bulk. A worm okey, but so many worms will make my body shake.

The major benefits of earthworm is for soil fertility and these can be summarized as:

Biological. In many soils, earthworms play a major role in converting large pieces of organic matter (e.g. dead leaves) into rich humus, and thus improving soil fertility. This is achieved by the worm's actions of pulling down below any organic matter deposited on the dried dirt, such as leaf fall or manure, either for food or when it needs to plug its burrow. Once in the burrow, the worm will shred the leaf and partially digest it, then mingle it with the earth by saturating it with intestinal secretions. Worm casts (see below) can contain 40% more humus than the top 6" of soil in which the worm is living

Chemical. As well as dead organic matter, the earthworm also ingests any other soil particles that are small enough—including stones up to 1/20 of an inch (1.25mm) across—into its gizzard wherein minute fragments of grit grind everything into a fine paste which is then digested in the stomach. When the worm excretes this in the form of casts which are deposited on the surface or deeper in the soil, minerals and plant nutrients are made available in an accessible form. Investigations in the US show that fresh earthworm casts are 5 times richer in available nitrogen, 7 times richer in available phosphates and 11 times richer in available potash than the surrounding upper 6 inches (150 mm) of soil. In conditions where there is plenty of available humus, the weight of casts produced may be greater than 4.5 kg (10 lb) per worm per year, in itself an indicator of why it pays the gardener or farmer to keep worm populations high.

Physical. By its burrowing actions, the earthworm is of great value in keeping the soil structure open, creating a multitude of channels which allow the processes of both aeration and drainage to occur. Permaculture co-founder Bill Mollison points out that by sliding in their tunnels, earthworms "act as an innumerable army of pistons pumping air in and out of the soils on a 24 hour cycle (more rapidly at night)" [2]. Thus the earthworm not only creates passages for air and water to traverse, but is itself a vital component in the living biosystem that is healthy soil.
loading...
Bagikan :
Back To Top