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Writers' Supplement To EDN 104: Lost Crops of Africa and Other Books From National Academies Press Can Be Read For

This document provides additional resources related to articles in EDN 104. It includes further resources on vermiculture such as videos, manuals, and books. It also discusses the African redworm species in more detail, noting its rapid processing of food. Photos show its use in vermiculture beds made from tires in Haiti. Finally, it notes that the Lost Crops of Africa book series can be read online for free from the National Academies Press.

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asseble christian kouadio
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40 views3 pages

Writers' Supplement To EDN 104: Lost Crops of Africa and Other Books From National Academies Press Can Be Read For

This document provides additional resources related to articles in EDN 104. It includes further resources on vermiculture such as videos, manuals, and books. It also discusses the African redworm species in more detail, noting its rapid processing of food. Photos show its use in vermiculture beds made from tires in Haiti. Finally, it notes that the Lost Crops of Africa book series can be read online for free from the National Academies Press.

Uploaded by

asseble christian kouadio
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Writers’ Supplement to EDN 104

We often come across interesting material related to articles in EDN that could not fit into the
space available for the articles. We share the most relevant of those here. For more
information on the following, click on the article name:

Further Resources about Vermiculture


More about African Redworms
Lost Crops of Africa and Other Books from National Academies Press Can Be Read for
Free Online

Further Resources about Vermiculture


The Worm Guy - Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl9gY_SqyxM. Danny Blank commented, “The video
shows two different systems for raising worms with possibly two different species. The
first is a system for producing uniform and large worm castings. A consistent and very
fine-particle sized feed (grain, dairy supplement, and finely composted bedding material)
is given these worms. Though the exact species is not given in the video, a local worm
farmer near ECHO uses a nearly identical system with what he calls the African redworm
or nightcrawler, Eudrilus eugeniae, that produces a decent sized worm casting that he
separates and sells. He explains the casting from the African redworm as larger and easier
to harvest than the common smaller composting redworms. The second system in the
video uses a mix of different organic scraps, so the worm diet is varied. This is a flow-
through system for easier harvest of castings. This type of feeding strategy is very similar
to ECHO’s approach. Our systems use composting worm species that produce a small-
sized cast. Our result is vermicompost, a nutrient and microbe-rich combination of
castings and decaying vegetable and bedding materials.”

Manual of On-Farm Vermicomposting and Vermiculture


by Glenn Munroe, Organic Agriculture Centre of Canada
www.organicagcentre.ca/DOCs/Vermiculture_FarmersManual_gm.pdf
This document contains a good discussion of different approaches to vermiculture and
vermicomposting. It addresses challenges and possibilities in temperate areas.

Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Applehoff


Rick Burnette commented that this is perhaps the most popular book about
vermicomposting. It is available from the ECHO bookstore.

Worms for Composting (Vermicomposting)


http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/vermicom.html
A publication from ATTRA (National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service) by
Alice Beetz.

HappyDRanch, http://www.happydranch.com/articles.html
Though HappyDRanch is a commercial site, several potentially helpful articles can be
accessed from this page.

More about African Redworms


We encountered some confusion about the scientific name of the African redworm, but
we have concluded that Fudrillus and Eudrilus are either the same genus (mis-spelled) or
are "synonyms." One website listed Fudrillus eugeniae (i.e. the same species name as
Eudrilus eugeniae). References to Fudrillus on the web are in Spanish. Mark Hare
commented in an e-mail, “In terms of the scientific name of the worms, I found very little
on Google when I entered Fudrillus. I have always assumed that it was an incorrect
spelling that led to that name being used in Nicaragua, since Eudrilus is extremely close
to Fudrillus, especially when everything is hand-written.”

Mark works at MPP in Haiti, where the community has had success using old tires as
containers for vermiculture (see photos, below). He commented, “Information I looked at
on the Internet suggests that Eudrilus tends to "wander", i.e. it sometimes crawls away
from where you're trying to raise it. That seems to be true for the African redworms with
which we are working. Sebas and crew [from Rancho Ebenezer in Nicaragua] showed me
how, when first starting a tire of worms, to put the worms in the middle of the tire and put
the fresh manure in a ring around the mass of worms, so that they could "wander" away,
directly into the food.

“Nevertheless, despite the wandering, from our experiences here at MPP and, from what I
understand from Sebas and Uriel at Rancho Ebenezer, the African worm processes food
much more rapidly than Eisenia foetida.”

Photo on far left: Octave Justimé stands beside a number of recycled tires being used for
vermiculture. Center photo: Wilner Exil checks the worms in a vermiculture bed made
from a tire. Photo on far right: A close-up of the worms. Photos taken in Haiti by Danny
Blank.

A book called Earthworm Ecology by Clive Arthur Edwards includes this information
about the African redworm: “The Eudrilus eugeniae species of earthworm. . .is a native
African species that lives in both soils and organic wastes but has been bred extensively
in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere for the fish-bait market, where it is
commonly called the African night crawler. It is a large, robust earthworm that grows
extremely rapidly, and it is relatively prolific when cultured. Under optimum conditions,
it could be considered an ideal species for animal feed protein production. Its main
disadvantages are a relatively narrow temperature tolerance and some sensitivity to
handling. Eudrilus eugeniae can live in soils and has high reproduction rates.”

Here is a link to a picture of an African redworm:


http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/resources/Grzimek_inverts/Oligochaeta/Eudr
ilus_eugeniae.jpg/view.html

Lost Crops of Africa and Other Books from National Academies Press
Can Be Read for Free Online
The three volumes in the Lost Crops of Africa series (Volume 1: Grains; Volume 2:
Vegetables; Volume 3: Fruits) are available for purchase from the National Academies
Press website, but I [DRB] learned while looking it up that the volumes can also be read
for free online. Follow this link to see a list of books in the category of “Crop and Plant
Production.”
http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11879

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