Earthworm surveys 2012

Volunteers from Shropshire Master Composters have been learning all about worms.  Its all part of a National Lottery funded project called OPAL which stands for Open Air Laboratories.  The OPAL project aims to get people out into nature to undertake basic research and gather data which can improve our scientific understanding of the environment.

The OPAL Earthworm project is run by the Natural History Museum in London with technical support from Imperial College.  We were very lucky to have a session let by one of the UK's premier worm experts Dr. David Jones who did his PhD specifically on worms.

We invited Dr Jones along to Shrewsbury, the birthplace of Charles Darwin, who himself was a big fan of worms to help increase our volunteers awareness of the role worms play in the garden and in the composting process too.  The day was supported by Shropshire Council, Garden Organic and Veolia who hosted the day at the Education Centre of the Councils Household Recycling Centre on Battlefield Industrial Estate in north Shrewsbury, and kindly provided us with lunch.

For the first part of this day we learned all about worms in the UK and abroad.  We were all amazed by these amazing animals who plough our soils for us and are completely essential for global food supply, soil structure, water retention and biodiversity.   We then went on to complete the OPAL Activity pack which is a free resource which you can use to identify worms.  It comes with full instructions and everything you need including a brilliant identification chart allowing you to identify the species.  Did you know there are 27 species of worms in the UK alone!

So we went out to explore the greenspace around Battlefield Household Recycling Centre with spades and worm ID cards.  We were suprised to find actually that even amongst all this concrete and development there were plenty of green spaces and plenty of worms. 

Hopefully some of us will be passing this knowledge on to local groups and school children.  Its a great activity to do in a group, but also something anyone can just do in their own back garden just out of interest to find email your details to opalsoil@imperial.ac.uk and they'll send you a free survey pack. Dr. Jones has also offered to come and speak to other groups in Shropshire if you are interested.


For the second half of the day we went back to the classroom for some biology lessons.  We looked at preserved specimens under microscopes which is truly amazing to see all that detail.  You can make a much more accurate identification of the species type with a microscope, mainly by counting the segments of the worms body and looking at where certain parts of the worm are located such as the male bits.  

We learned all sorts of new technical terms for worms and though it was quite tricky to begin with, we were soon able to successfully identify several species.

All in all it was a great day, so thanks to all the staff who helped arrange it and all the volunteers who came along.  We all felt inspired by the day to help conserve worms and make sure we garden in a way which is sympathetic to them because they are so vital.  Now we all just want to get out there and spread this knowledge and pass it on to others. 

So next time you want some advice about worms in the garden and using wormeries for composting your food waste, come and speak to a Shropshire Master Composter, we are now officially experts!  Also Dr. Jones is happy to come back to Shropshire and speak to other groups, so if anyone is interested just get in touch.  As Darwin said "never in the field of human horticulture, has so much be owed by so few to so many"... something like that...