Jumping Worm Research Update by Dr Lee Frelich

[@ScarletClementine]

Excellent presentation, about the best available!

[@teresacherin6624]

I live in Central Florida. 2 years ago I bought cow manure from a store. When I opened them they had worms in the manure. I thought that was great...its so hard -if not impossible- to have worms here. Little did I know... I added it to an inground bed 8x2 along with some store bought organic soil. I added compost and kitchen scraps throughout the season to get the soil ready for planting in the fall. But in researching various gardening sites I discovered jumping worms and realized that the worms I had were the crazy thrashing worms that act like you just electrocuted them they kick around so badly. In just one year they had increased to hundreds-in that one bed since I was feeding them deliberately-thinking they were "good" worms. I sat and went through all the soil small hand shovel by hand shovel picking them out. I repeated that process 3 more times over the past year and now do not see hardly any -one or two now. But I have found an adult one on the other side of the yard -also a tiny one elsewhere and now an adult and a baby in my leaf mulch I'm making on the back of the house. What I have found here in Florida is that the little lizards are watching me dig and when I put a smaller worm out on a napkin -the lizards run over and snatch and eat it. From now on when I find one -I'll put it on my patio and let the lizards eat it. Im watching the yard now like a hawk but I was going to do permaculture and now feel that I cant as that will give them the exact habitat they need. But here in Florida -if you don't mulch and compost and amend-you don't have soil, you have sand. My 20x4 garden bed has no obvious life in it due to cooking in the sun for a year and I am going to place clear plastic sheeting over it for July and August to control the nematodes-I expect that will deal with any stray jumping worms that may have made it into that bed. Then try permaculture and watch and see. Hopefully all my dozens of lizards will help me out as I dig out any stray worms.

[@joniboulware1436]

They absolutely love compost piles. Even though I hot compost, the worms move in when it cools. Now all my compost has to be solarized before use. We need access to those Saponins now. There is basically one source and shipping costs are unafordable.

[@mariap.894]

Teresa@ I did the same exact thing with my garden!!!!😮😢😮😢😮😭 Now I'll have to start to find all the jumping worms out and feed them to the Geckos. I feel like a fool and I'm so overwhelmed to the point of giving up!💔💔💔

[@159India1]

At my home in Greenpoint Brooklyn, I have an organic vegetable garden and 2 compost bins. I have discovered Asian jumping worms, but have had difficulty distinguishing them from the earth worms. I am very grateful for the information that Dr Frelich is providing to help me distinguish between them. I will definitely take the online training program. The New York Parks Department gathers leaves in huge piles in the fall. I looked online to see if they provided information about Asian jumping worms, which I didn’t find. I will try to get the word out to this agency, and I hope that they are astute enough to follow through.

[@CAMDEC1217]

An update on my situation. Last 2 years I have had the asian jumping worms, last year being the worse. I even bought a fertilizer that is supposed to kill the adults to get this all under some control. I have not even had to use it. This year I have found 1 or 2 but that is it. Don't know what happened but glad they disappeared on their own and i did not have to use the product as it would have killed all worms, not just Asian.

[@tamarawilcox6954]

Thank you for sharing this video :-)

[@IsaiahsBabyDaddy]

I am new to gardening and lawn care, but give myself credit for noticing changes. I have witnessed an explosion of Japanese silt grass on my property. Wherever I find silt grass, I find it rooted in granules of soil. The soil is so loose you can swipe it away, but it is dark and rich. As you mentioned @10:45ish I think these worms are paving way for new plants to capitalize.

[@mariettabrill4808]

he did hypothesizze that they could promote plants that naturally occur in their original native lands - like stilt grass...I have lots of stilt grass in the forest but little of it is connected to the jumping worms...yet. eek

[@gardenerpete5232]

Coffee grounds are acidic if you don't brew coffee. If they're from brewed coffee, their PH7.

[@charlesburkhart800]

I know I have them here in east Cleveland Ohio. We have had red wigglers and night crawlers before. But I think these started showing up about 2 years ago. I didn't know what they were and didn't pay much attention. I buy some plants and yearly order local leaf mulch for our gardens. We lost several ash trees to emerald ash borers a few years ago. Our whole back yard is in garden beds. There is no way I can go through all that soil searching for worms. This is horrible!

[@pennyfuller1862]

So they must be all along major waterways as well? Considering the massive runoff from yards etc...

[@kevinesterline622]

I have had very large some up to 10-12 inches long in my yard in Indiana (southern). For longer than 20 year's. They are very large and jump and go nuts when you dig them up or touch them.

[@kathyglines6564]

Is there an update on this project?

[@joniboulware1436]

I don't see how we can continue to avoid a poisoning approach.

[@sheneedaable]

Found many in my fairly large mulch pile on the exterior of my fence line. Looking for advice on what to do with the mulch pile. Here in Kansas City, MO Found in planter by house ripped up all plants and have been handpicking until I can solarize.

[@vikigossen1578]

Thank you for making this info available. On the requirement of going through a cold spell, I'd like to know how cold and how long. I never heard this before and it might help or it might lead to a low number then an explosion of them when a colder winter. I am in central VA and have JWs in my garden. I don't find resources such as this presentation made for my region though.

[@laurieedeburn2449]

i dont get it.. they eat mulch? poop... arent the castings good?

[@autumnmarchand6661]

No they’re not actually

[@southernvtgrown]

Omg, these invasive jumping worms. We live in southern Vermont, we bought this gravel lot, no worms just ants. 3 years later minimal ants and these jumping worms, which we believe the fishing on our brooke out back has brought them to us. Collected about 50-75 from a 2ft x 2ft spot last night. They are eating our land and compost layers faster than we can replace. Seeing that many in such a small spot there must be millions on our 1 acre.

[@southernvtgrown]

Our chickens refuse to eat them, I feel because of how slimy and sticky they are.

[@mariettabrill4808]

How long does it take to go from stage 1 to stage 5?

[@karunald]

My question to him would be - if you cared deeply about your personal garden and wanted to really try to kill the worms - what product would you pick to kill them easily or larger areas?

[@mariap.894]

I don't think there's a way. I've heard that there's a mustard solution that you can make to drench a small part of your garden and find them so you can pick them out, but nothing for larger areas😢

[@CAMDEC1217]

I have been told that it would take 3 days at 104 degrees to kill the eggs and cocoons, does it really take that long?

[@mariap.894]

That would be awesome😊!

[@joniboulware1436]

The worms go fast. But the cocoons take much longer. I have left clear bags of compost out for two weeks when much of the days were overcast. After two weeks some cocoons still hatched.

[@rachelross5829]

How do we will them? I'm not doing summer garden but thinking of pouring borax on my dirt then covering with cardboard or news paper then spraying that with essential oils then when. I want to plant I put new dirt maybe sprayed with peroxide or even microwaved. It's horrible here in pa. O and when I plant my seedling for fall, I will surround the root with eggshells. Been saving all my eggshells

[@mariap.894]

I don't think the eggshells will do any harm. Maybe container gardening will be the solution?🤔

[@rachelross5829]

@@mariap.894 I read salt will buy yes, been doing containers. These worms don't eat certain root like artichoke

[@whittenbarger9145]

Ive never seen a worm float with a good fish hook 😂. What’s the research for fishing with these wiggly worms ? 😂