Thursday, September 17, 2009

Worm Cocoons

Fall is right around the corner and the worms are noticing this. Once again we are seeing an increasing number of cocoons throughout each bed. We have been monitoring this trend for about 4 years now in the large-scale systems and the cooler temperatures of early fall seem to promote increased mating and resulting cocoons throughout the worm populations.

Do worms breed continuously throughout the year in the large-scale systems. Yes... BUT..you definitely see more dominant mating periods at specific intervals throughout the year as well. We can pinpoint 5 specific times (or ranges of time) of the year in which we see increased mating and resulting cocoons.

2 comments:

  1. So could we say that cold after a period of warmth could promotes reproduction?,making the worms think winter is comming?

    Probably for survival reasons as i read before that at freezing temperature, cocoons have more success of survival than the worms them selves

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  2. cold is when they really lay cocoons heavy, we saw this last winter..3 inches below frozen leaves thousands of cocoons and babies!

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