asian jumping worms - Ask Extension
I know I am in a no win situation, but pls advise on best response. No doubt more and more of us will face this so pls provide a consensus response f...
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asian jumping worms #872882
Asked June 12, 2024, 9:19 PM EDT
I know I am in a no win situation, but pls advise on best response. No doubt more and more of us will face this so pls provide a consensus response from all the great scientific minds there. Jumping worms are in my garden, probably from some wood chips brought in. They apparently appreciate compost and shredded leaves where I found one about 1'. My enigma is whether to 1) keep feeding the compost pile where they will thrive and proliferate, then presumably sooner or later move on, or 2) stop adding to compost so maybe not promote their increase as quickly but promote quicker dispersion across my land, or 3) a combo of both. I will continue to capture and kill any I see, but want to know best practices to slow the damage they will cause. Thanks
Anne Arundel County Maryland
Expert Response
We have limited information on the potential for spread (under their own migration power) for jumping worms in soil within one yard. You probably do not need to worry about continuing to make and use your own compost, and stopping your compost production will probably not have any significant impact on how fast or slow their rate of spread is. Some best practices options for managing the spread of jumping worm can be found in our Invasive Jumping Worms web page. If you hot-compost, for example, temperatures will get high enough that any worms inside the pile will not survive.
Miri
Miri