Want Any Help in Vermiculture?
A. K. Das

Out of the three score and ten years allotted to man, I have been working for over four decades - changing jobs and vocations voluntarily.  I am no tinker, tailor, solider, spy; but aviation, dairying, forestry make an uncommon mix.

At an interview for an employment in new pastures, I realised and truthfully acknowledge my lack of skills required for the going job.  I was not an anthropologist, sociologist, botanist, zoologist, geographer, planner, architect, engineer, lawyer, economist, or a computer specialist.  I did not want to mention about two decades of administrative experience since administrators are available dozen a dime.  I had studied spherical trigonometry, cartography, astronomy, meteorology; analogue computers were part of my stock in-trade, even flown over the north pole where the compasses do not work, but all that is redundant thanks to relentless technological progress and advent of inertial and satellite navigation systems.  I had failed to go digital.  Mea Culpa.

However, the prospective employer produced a spiral bound volume and asked me if I could do something with it.  The cover read “State of the ART Report on Vermiculture in India”.  I could not establish a link between `art’ and this unknown `culture’.  My acquaintance with culture ran up through arboriculture, agriculture, horticulture, pisciculture, and stopped at work-culture but “vermi” rang no bell.  I looked blank, but interested.  My interlocutor asked me to come back with it a week hence suggesting that I could rewrite wherever I thought it necessary!  I enquired if there was another copy with him and I saw the glint in his eyes that said `good riddance’.  At home, I turned a page and read the `foreword’ which says (I have the Report & I quote) - “The existing confusion in the area of vermiculture and vermicomposting, especially for the lay person is among the reasons that prompted this study”.  Well, this much was reassuring - the subject matter could confuse a lay person.  I need not feel bad about it.  The next page - the Contents, unravelled the secret of `vermi’ in the sequential arrangement of the topics - `Taxonomy and classification`.  Distribution of earthworms in India, Earthworm physiology etc.  I realized that `verm’ & `worm’ are very close relations - the thing to do now is to find clear distinctive features of `culture’ vis-a-vis `compost’ to eliminate the chances of lay person getting confused!

So, I burrowed into the text and found the clue to the resolution of the likely confusion - mixing up `culture’ with `compost’.  The author informs - “Vermiculture essentially means culturing of earthworms”.  This culturing process I guessed was raising “earthworms”, as people raise poultry & pigs.  The idea is to multiply the species.  Start with a few & let them multiply - that’s where the physiology comes!  Well, people do this even in IOWA, if Radar O’ Reilly of M*A*S*H* fame is to be believed.  They not only raise, they race their earthworms.

Composting is producing manure from organic wastes, but vermicomposting is the “process by which epigeic earthworms species are used for the conversion of organic wastes into vermicompost”.  The lay-man must know what these epigeic species are and only when he can recognise the epigeic earthworms in a garbage pile he can be sure that he is watching `vermicompost’ under manufacture!  At this stage, my quest for clarity called for a little alcohol intake.  You find any paradox here?  I don’t.  I have lived my life believing that we fly, drive, speak, write - in fact do everything better when there is a little alcohol in the blood-stream.  And I remember an anecdote narrated by an II Tian friend when discussing the way research project went on in India.

At one of the great institutions, a research project - “Behaviour of Earthworms under influence of alcohol” was sanctioned.  Research must necessarily take time.  After six months or so, when the Researcher was asked to give a status report on his project, he stated that his observations under the influence of single, double, treble pegs of whiskey have been documented and at the next stage, he will do so with brandy.  It did not require much imagination to presume that the progressing will be through the entire range of IMFL if the funds would support!  It was good to feel that I, too, could make the right start. 

It had been raining for a few days and the earthworms appeared to be everywhere.  But, I had to get the fundas clear - hence, back to taxonomy and classification.  I skipped the first part and took a good look at the classification made by Bouche (1977) into three main types based on lifestyles & burrowing habits of earthworms.

The `Epiges’ are essentially surface litter dwellers have uniform colouration and small body size (10-30 cm).

Examples: Lumbricus rubellus, Eisenia foetida, Eudrilus eugeniae.
 

I went to the rest of the Report attentively, but had to be content to know that `endoges’ the second type live in the upper 30-50 mm soil layer, are lightly pigmented and vary in size from small to large.  Baby `endoges’, I thought, could be mistaken as epigeis.  There is no problem with the third variety “aneciques” which are deep burrowing species, have dark pigmentation (dark brown on the anterior and dorsal parts).  They are large in size 20cm to 150cm.  As a child and a boy, I have used earthworms to catch fish.  I do recollect that we used the ones with `uniform colouration’, in fact red ones in preference to the thick dark pigmented ones.  And if you want `vermicompost’, you have to culture the red ones and not the big darkies!

As I gulped down the third drink, I concluded that the distinction between `vermiculture’ and vermicompost’ was not difficult to make, but where one needed `vermicompost’- the ideal stuff to replace inorganic chemical manure, one had to use the epegeic species - eisenia foetida, eudrilus eugenaie or lumbricus rubellus, and not lampet to mauritii or allolobophora rosea!  The safe bet is to call in a consultant, who knows the physiology well, someone like the author of the Report and not to depend on behavioural differences of the species observed under influence of alcohol!    q