Listen in Estonian or read in English how vermicompost boosts horticultural plant production in greenhouses
In the cultivation of garden plants and vegetables, the use of vermicompost gives a significant advantage, the latter is obtained from cow dung that has been "eaten through" by dung worms. Ussimo Ltd. board member Teodor Tõks explains that vermicompost is biohumus, but not all biohumus is vermicompost. Not all peoples can tell the difference between composted soil and vermicomposted soil at home with the naked eye, but according to researcher Margit Olle, the result differs greatly due to the starting material. Developing a growing medium with vermicompost is no joke, it took researcher Olle as much as three years to create recipes for a precisely tuned growing medium. Vermicompost produced under the Ussimo brand is obtained on the basis of cattle manure, which in turn is mixed with growing soil, because pure vermicompost is too strong for plants. In favor of vermicompost is the fact that it is much easier for plants to absorb the nutrients they need. Listen to the "Spring in your home" podcast in Estonian language on why to use growing media for growing balcony plants or in a greenhouse and what a dung worm, a type of earthworm, looks like.
Want to read in English? Olle, M. 2020. Vermicompost is boosting greenhouse vegetable production. USA: Amazon Media EU S.à r.l. (in English), 101 pp. Vermicompost produced by the activity of earthworms is rich in macro and micronutrients, vitamins, growth hormones, enzymes such as proteases, amylases, lipase, cellulase and chitinase and immobilized microflora. The enzymes continue to disintegrate organic matter even after they have been ejected from the worms. Reduced use of water for irrigation, reduced pest attack, reduced termite attack, reduced weed growth; faster rate of seed germination and rapid seedlings growth and development; greater numbers of fruits per plant (in vegetable crops) and greater numbers of seeds per year (in cereal crops) are only some of the beneficial effects of the vermicompost usage in agricultural production. In my trials, vermicompost boosted all horticultural crops (cress, basil, radish, cabbage, tomato, cucumber, cabbage) growth in greenhouses without agrochemicals. This book contains 7 different scientific articles and shows how the growth and quality of indoor vegetable production can be influenced by adding vermicompost to growth substrates. The first article is a review article about vermicompost and plant production. The second article is about vermicompost influence on basil growth. The third article is about vermicompost and tomato growth. The fourth article is about vermicompost growth substrates for cress. The fifth article shows the effect of vermicompost to white cabbage transplants. The sixth paper talks about vermicompost and cucumber transplants. The seventh article is assessing the influence of vermicompost on radish growth and nutrient content.
