Wiggly worms can help farmers assess soil health

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-03-07 03:00

New Zealand

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One thing New Zealand isn’t short of is worms: the country has nearly 200 native earthworm species alone. However the native wrigglies are often found in forests rather than farm soils, and large areas of NZ’s agricultural soils often contain  limited amounts of earthworms that aren't native, including some soils with no worms at all. To use worms as an indicator of the biological health of soil, a Kiwi team recommends a specific minimum earthworm presence of 400 worms per square metre of soil, including where possible all three ecological types of earthworm - epigeic, endogeic and anecic - each kind present at abundances of over 25 worms per square metre.