Biodynamic Farming: All About Vermiculture Technology

When it comes to biodynamic farming, people are turning to natural and traditional ways to help keep the soil fertile and organically rich in nutrients. One of the modernly developed techniques to arrive to biodynamic agriculture is vermiculture technology.

In the past, the use of earthworms and their castings or excretions in promoting plant growth had been widespread. In fact, ancient agricultural lands in Egypt, North America and Asia were abundant of earthworms, which were known to help spur and maintain overall productivity of lands. With the introduction of chemical fertilizers and the robust demand for food, agriculturists switched to the modern technology and systems of cropping to be able to cope up with fast demand and consumption.

These days, more and more farmers and agriculturists are reverting back to the old, organic and chemicals-free mode of farming. Putting earthworms into farms and plant plots has become a standard in ensuring that plants will grow better and healthier. But because of the adverse weather conditions and other factors, earthworms helpful to farming do not easily grow, thrive and propagate. This is the reason why vermiculture has become an important sector of agriculture.

Vermiculture is the process and technology of artificially cultivating or rearing earthworms for agricultural and productive purposes. Gone are the days when earthworms are regarded and treated as pests and as disgusting, small and crawling organisms. Now, worms are raised to reproduce faster. They are even fed and given optimal and ideal environment for growth and metabolism.

Earthworms are the only means to attain vermicomposting, which is in turn a way to significantly boost organic and important nutrients in the soil. The idea behind the process is that worms' excretions make the soil richer. Scientifically, vermiculture castings or earthworms' excretions, when mixed in the soil, have seven times more phosphorus, five times nitrate, 11 times potash, thrice amounts of magnesium and almost two times more calcium than normal soil used optimally for vegetable cropping in the most fertile agricultural lands. That is far better than what chemical and synthetic agricultural fertilizers can provide.

In a nutshell, overall benefits of vermiculture can never be underestimated. Vermiculture worms convert wastes, such as left over foods, tea bags, fruit peelings, vegetable scraps, eggshells and animal manure, into organic matter that fertilizes the soil and provide high humus content. Worms even facilitate entry of air into soil, which in turn helps increase resistance of plants so that there will be natural organic pesticidal features that drive away pests. There are even earthworm species that can be used as animal feed or as extenders to several processed foods.

Through the modern vermiculture technology, soil friendly earthworms are assisted so that they could reproduce faster and raise population by three to four times in just a month or two. Businesses specializing in the initiatives prepare and allot facilities ideal for earthworm reproduction and cultivation.

Earthworms are naturally demised by too much exposure to light, particularly sunlight, high and extremely freezing temperatures and non-moist soil. Thus, vermiculture involves artificially facilitating good and ideal environments where earthworms could thrive.  This way, biodynamic farming could proceed.

A Biodynamic Gardening Avenue

Man has been proven throughout the years of history to have unmatched character. He is able to withstand all sorts of trials and trying times in order to continue survival and propagation. This can be attributed to the ability of inculcating innovative changes into his surroundings so as to maximize the functionality of every resource available. Let’s take a look at how the agricultural people enhance the usefulness of the soil in biodynamic gardening and farming via the presence of compost materials.

Basically compost is the combination created from food materials and other organic components. This mixing process is made possible by aerobic mechanisms that occur within the confines of black soil. The composting process has been evident in many places across the globe. Its simplicity has attracted a lot of individuals to utilize it within their household. Common farmers and industrial folks have also taken a liking to the benefits of composting.

Composted soil is considered as enriched soil and has been used as a medium in various fields and vicinities. It has been a common character that has been embraced by landscapes and gardens as well as horticulture and agriculture. It has been noted to have beneficial contributions such as fertilizer, natural pesticide, and soil conditioner. It is also found useful for land and stream reclamation, landfill cover, erosion control, and wetland construction.

There has been thorough recommendation of compost being a significant soil additive. This is because it has the capacity to bring humus and nutrients in the soil into an active state. Moreover, it facilitates the provision of an avenue for the growth of porous and absorbent materials that can support moisture and soluble mineral resulting into adequate plant nutrition. It can be mixed with the likes of sand, vermiculite, grit, soil, clay granules, perlite, or bark chips to come with loam.

Composting has gone passed the basic lines of agriculture into magnitudes that can prove to be helpful for global conditions. In recent times, there have been issues regarding the increase of the space being occupied by landfills thereby bringing recycling alternatives on the table. Composting has been tapped on as a way to boost recycling campaigns since it involves conversion of decomposable organic matter into useful and more stable entities.

New heights of composting have been mandate by law particularly in Western countries. It has reached an industrial level and exists in forms such as aerated static pile composting, anaerobic digestion, in-vessel composting. Actually there have been formulated guidelines that date as early as the 80s in Germany, Holland, and Switzerland. The United States and the United Kingdom are continually strengthening their policies in order to support composting.

In order to cope with new trends in the field there have construction of modern concepts of composting in order to enhance the method itself and correct the perceived problems associated with the old one. Rapid composting is now being advocated wherein the process can take place within two to three weeks. Other changes outlined focused on the monitoring of the moisture level and details in the compost content specifically bringing the carbon to nitrogen ratio of thirty to one.

Biodynamic gardening and farming offers a wide array of methods and principles that is why a certain practitioner must be keen in knowing the smallest of details such as proper and effective composting schemes.

What is Biodynamic Farming?

In the agriculture industry, biodynamic farming is fast becoming an important technique. It is a method of special organic farming that calls for treatment of farms as individual and unified organisms. It emphasizes balance in the holistic interrelationship and development of plants, animals, and soil in a self-nourishing system even without external outputs. This is possible given the usual loss of nutrients in the soil due to continuous and heavy farming.

Biodynamic farming is regarded by many as a form of a pioneering modern ecological farming technique. It has many things in common with many other organic farming approaches. Biodynamic farming emphasizes the use of composts and manures with simultaneous exclusion of the use of artificial chemicals usually applied on soil and on plants to increase production. Among the methods that are unique to biodynamic farming approach is the use of fermented mineral and herbal preparations like compost additives, natural field sprays, and the use of astronomical planting and sowing calendar.

In essence, biodynamic farming as well as gardening looks at the soil and the farm as a whole like living organisms. This regards maintenance and furtherance of the soil life as an important and basic necessity if soil is intended to be preserved for many generations. The technique regards the farm as true to its essential nature if it could be conceived as a kind of entity in itself. The technique starts with the ideal concept of necessary self-contained structure of the farm and the necessary works to further the life of soil.

Maintaining soil life is important in the protection of soil from erosion. It is also necessary in the creation, improvement, and augmentation of the significant humus content. There would be fine, crumbly, and fertile soil structure containing necessary organic colloids. Thus, this leads to production of quality crops, which leads to better feed for many types of livestock and better for consumption by people.

In biodynamic farming, manure and compost are considered the most valuable forms of fertilizers. Such materials contain organic matter where soil bacteria as well as earthworms could be fed. Doing so would eventually help revitalize the soil. Manure and compost also have colloids that absorb moisture as well as mineral solutions to form a crumbly structure, eventually eliminating erosion. Careful storage of manure within heaps covered with soil could help prevent or reduce loss of nitrogen in the soil.

Biodynamic compost preparations could play an important role in the unified approach to agriculture. Such materials are made of several medicinal herbs that undergo a long and tedious process of fermentation to enrich the soil in growth-stimulating substances. At the same time, the technique and strategy of appropriate crop rotation is very necessary in preserving soil fertility. As a general rule, soil-exhausting crops like potatoes, corn, cabbage, and cauliflower should alternate along with soil-restoring crops like legumes.

At the same time, biodynamic farming also calls for planting of deep-rooting crops alternating planting of shallow-rooting ones. Crops that are requiring manure must alternate with plants that could do without it.