‘Black Gold’: Like ‘Mothers Milk for Plants’
Worms are miraculous little ‘transformation’ tubes eating all that’s left at the end of the organic life cycle while magically depositing the perfect nutritional 'starter pack' to nourish the next.
As this organic meal passes through the worm's digestive system it is colonised by 10-20x more beneficial microorganisms than their dietary intake. The mucus secretions of our little worm ‘bio-factories’ provide more concentrated nutrition and microbial diversity than any other compost you can buy. The resulting bio-rich output (inclusive of live worms and/or worm eggs) is our premium, high potency ‘Black Gold’ whole bio-active worm castings.
‘Black Gold’ naturally contains concentrated communities of worms, valuable bacteria, fungi, protozoa, growth-promoting hormones, fulvic and humic acids, enzymes and other bioactive substances that improve germination and plant vigor and fertility.
The robust biology of ‘Black Gold’ boosts plant-available fertility and activates soil life, increasing plant health and resilience, producing stronger plants and higher yields. ‘Black Gold’ worm castings build soil structure, suppress disease, improve aeration and moisture retention while fostering a complex, symbiotic web of microbial life between plant roots, microbial and fungal communities are essential to creating nutritionally intense, healthy, biodynamic, moisture holding, immune building soils.
‘Black Gold’ is ‘the difference that makes the difference’ to your soil health, humus development and plant growth.
‘Black Gold’ is a Plant Growing SuperFood
Digging down into the 'soil science' behind healthy soils, we know that an abundance of 'healthy soil life' is as important to plant vigour as having a healthy balance of ‘gut microbiota’ is for human health.
That’s because plants, like us, need our food broken down into absorbable 'single cells' of nutrient.
In the same way that we can't absorb a whole apple, directly into our blood stream, plants need the help of 'soil microbiota' to break down nutrients into the ‘root available’ form of nutrients they’re able to absorb.
Likewise, the content of our diets affects the balance of healthy and unhealthy microbiota in our gut - and the ‘diet’ we feed our soils affects the balance of beneficial microbial communities upon which the health and vitality of our plants depend.
Making this connection between ‘soil health’ and 'human health’ is critical on many levels.
Maintaining a bioactively rich ‘soil web’ of life around the root zone is not only critical to plant health, however, as all the food we eat is directly and indirectly sourced from plant nutrition. Recent research also confirms that contact with ‘living' soil plays a critical role in strengthening the development of our human immune system.
While ‘dirt’ is considered something to be eliminated from our lives… we cannot live without ‘living’ soils. And the ‘transformation tube’ that joins the whole regenerative cycle of life together... is the humble little worm.
You can use ‘Black Gold’ to prepare new soil before planting out, regenerate old soils, side-dress vegetables and flowers, supercharge transplants, make incredible potting mix and even brew ‘compost tea’ for liquid feeding and foliar sprays that help prevent and treat foliar diseases.
During the growing season ‘Black Gold’ castings are the perfect side dressing, boosting growth at critical times when plants need more available nitrogen and other growth promoting nutrients to optimise their potential.
Worm Castings Science 101
Aristotle describes worms as “the intestines of earth and the restoring agents of soil fertility”.
They are biological indicators of soil quality and play an important role in the decomposition of organic matter and soil metabolism through feeding, fragmentation, aeration, turnover and dispersion of minerals, nutrients and co-factors that encourage large soil populations of bacteria, enzymes, viruses, fungi, insects and other organisms that all together combine to be ‘healthy' soil.
Worm castings contribute nutrients in the form of nitrogenous wastes, stimulate microbial activity and enhance the transformation of soluble nitrogen into microbial protein which prevents the leaching of this essential nutrient below the root zone. They also cement soil particles together in water-stable aggregates. These are able to store moisture without dispersing and this is especially relevant for sandy soils.
They have higher base-exchangeable phosphorus, exchangeable potassium and manganese, higher total exchangeable calcium and contain fine particles of organic matter whose greater surface area provide rich feeding grounds for soil microbes.
The effect on plant growth and disease resistance has been confirmed by research teams from all around the world.
Not only do plants grow higher with thicker stems, have stronger root development and immunity from disease, studies confirm that worm castings improve the germination of seeds, growth of seedlings and the harvest yields of food crops at every stage of development.
In summary, and without going cross eyed about the ‘deep science’ of 'cat ion' exchanges, worm castings produced as a result of a high quality and nutritionally balanced worm diet improve the physical, chemical and biological properties of soil (Kale, 1998).
They contain a greater population of fungi, actinomycetes and bacteria and higher enzyme activity than the surrounding soil and have an important effect on soil crumb structure by increasing the stability of the worm-cast-soil relative to that of the surrounding soil. Worm castings inoculate soils with microorganisms and many microorganisms in the soil remain dormant metabolic state awaiting activation from through contact with worm castings and/or their mucus.
Worm castings bring about mineralisation of organic matter and thereby release the nutrients in available forms that can be taken up by the plants (Edwards and Bohlen, 1996).
Lab Report News
Australia’s leading soil scientist, Simon Leake - founder of SESL laboratory, summarises his ‘Black Gold’ analysis results :
"This is a well balanced, mature aged, nutrient rich form of castings with a Carbon/Nitrogen ratio of a well balanced source material.
It will act to give a slow release Nitrogen source as well as readily available nutrients with good microbial balance and associated disease suppressive properties.
The nutrient balance is good for improving plant growth and nutrition and, unlike poultry manures and mushroom composts, it can be used on soils repeatedly without causing nutrient imbalance in the soil.
