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Latest News New Event Calendar Added What a Can of Worms! Earthworms in the Garden How Much Earth Could an Earthworm Move Effects of Cropping and Tree Density Working with Worms Coelomic Fluid Proteins as Basic Components The Search for Innate Immune Receptors Earthworms Help Solve Waste Problem Worm Revolutionaries Keeping Your Soil Healthy Soil Improvement with Organic Materials Is There Signaling During Earthworm Immunity? A Simulation Model of Earthworm Invasions: Secrets of Organic Rose Plant Gardening Nitrogenous Waste Excretion by Earthworms Introduction of Exotic Earthworms Inter-And Intraspecies Relationship Relationships in Earthworms Influence of Earthworm Activity Earthworms from a Sand Dune Ecosystem Most Popular Young Person's Guide to Vermicomposting Earthworm Biology The Mighty Worm Worm Bin Critter Gallery Vermiculture Industry in Circular Economy Worm Therapy: a New Treatment for IBD? Rare Earthworm Discovery India's Bio Fertilizer Firms on High as West Stresses Organic Foods Of Enzymes, Worms and Cancer Ice Worms: They're Real, and They're Hot Worm Digest in Transition Worm Study May Help Humans Live 120 Years 'Zombie' Worms Found in North Sea Shallows What happened to Real Food? Earthworms in the Garden Earthworms Help Beijingers Dispose of Trash Jonah and his Whale of Earthworms What a Can of Worms! The Kiwi Killers Student Infects Worm With Virus Mid- and Large-scale Worm Composting Systems Intro User Rating: / 2 PoorBest  Written by Administrator    Sunday, 11 September 2005 Larger bins are our focus now. The market for mid- and large-scale vermicomposting systems has grown up alongside, though somewhat later than, that of small-scale bins and systems. We find several good designs and more are certainly on the way. The time is ripe for vermicomposting innovation and we've only begun to explore the possibilities for well-functioning system designs. In our last issue (#23) we categorized small-scale bins as simple plastic bins, stacking tray systems, continuous flow systems and lateral movement systems. With larger systems, however, the continuous flow design dominates. The savings in time and labor offered by this design are all the more deeply appreciated as the amount of material processed increases. In early 1994 the first mid-scale vermicomposting system appeared on the market in Washington and Oregon, USA. Called the Worm Wigwam and designed by John Gorman Sauvage, it made vermicomposting "as easy as taking out the garbage." It was adopted by several Oregon schools that year, and spread from there. At roughly the same time, Al Eggen, head of Vermitech Systems Ltd. of Toronto, Ontario developed a fully-automated, temperature controlled large-scale vermicomposting system that has been purchased as a modular system for use at sites around the world. The concerns and difficulties experienced by users of these larger systems are significantly different from those using home-scale systems. Scaling up means dealing with the potentially greater effects of heat of decomposition, solar gain (energy accumulated from sunlight on or around the system), thermal mass (the ability of these large systems to hold onto heat and cold much longer than a small system) and moisture. While these effects are felt in smaller systems, they are different beasts to contend with in mid- and large-scale systems. Many users of mid-scale systems have experienced temperature spikes at the core of the system as high as 145°F. Even in cool air, the sun's rays striking a larger bin can add heat faster than the system can dissipate it. When we move up to a large scale, we find that systems are actually easier to manage in many ways than small scale! Excess moisture is rarely a problem in these systems. Since most large-scale units are in an indoor facility, solar gain may not have as great an impact. The real issues with large-scale systems are bacterial heating from decomposition and how to store or manage the feedstock before it's fed to the vermicomposting system. The siting of a proposed mid- or large-scale system needs to be carefully considered before setting up. A suitably large space, designed to contain it and perhaps a certain amount of feedstock and vermicompost, needs to be located. The system needs to be situated so that organisms in the system do not become a nuisance to people, particularly in food preparation areas. We hope that the information in this article will be a valuable resource for mid- and large-scale systems, and perhaps encourage some current small-scale vermicomposters to take their worm work to a new level. Last Updated ( Sunday, 02 October 2005 )   < Prev   Next > [ Back ]