Vermicompost - Climate and Temperature

Climate and Temperature

The most common worms used in composting systems, redworms (Eisenia foetida, Eisenia andrei, and Lumbricus rubellus) feed most rapidly at temperatures of 15–25 °C (59-77 °F). They can survive at 10 °C (50 °F). Temperatures above 30 °C (86 °F) may harm them. This temperature range means that indoor vermicomposting with redworms is suitable in all but tropical climates. (Other worms like Perionyx excavatus are suitable for warmer climates.) If a worm bin is kept outside, it should be placed in a sheltered position away from direct sunlight and insulated against frost in winter.

It is necessary to monitor the temperatures of large-scale bin systems (which can have high heat-retentive properties), as the feedstocks used can compost, heating up the worm bins as they decay and killing the worms.

Read more about this topic:  Vermicompost

Famous quotes containing the words climate and/or temperature:

    The climate of Ohio is perfect, considered as the home of an ideal republican people. Climate has much to do with national character.... A climate which permits labor out-of-doors every month in the year and which requires industry to secure comfort—to provide food, shelter, clothing, fuel, etc.—is the very climate which secures the highest civilization.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    This pond never breaks up so soon as the others in this neighborhood, on account both of its greater depth and its having no stream passing through it to melt or wear away the ice.... It indicates better than any water hereabouts the absolute progress of the season, being least affected by transient changes of temperature. A severe cold of a few days’ duration in March may very much retard the opening of the former ponds, while the temperature of Walden increases almost uninterruptedly.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)