Four Billion Waste Workers

Commercial worm farmer Michael Quintern may have lost track of his labour force numbers but he has no qualms about worker competency.

His industrial worm composting farms in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty process everything from kiwifruit skins and avocado stones to milk plant sludge and leftover solids from the wastewater treatment process. And his industrious earthworms produce a nutrient-rich compost that is used as a fertiliser and moisture retention aid on orchards, farms and in home gardens throughout New Zealand.

The German-born soil scientist has been told he has the largest worm farm in the world, given his four sites collectively cover 85 hectares.

“We have about three or four billion worms, we’ve stopped counting,” the MyNoke company founder and director says. “They work 24/7 – they never have a day off.”

Michael has been well occupied himself, since his career in forestry research took an unexpected turn in 2007. He had spent a year working on a trial that used worms to successfully convert problematic paper mill pulp into fertile soil – earthworm humus – and the results were so impressive, he quit his job.

“I dropped my fully-paid senior scientist position and started the business from scratch. I had a lot of sleepless nights and a very supportive wife and family,” he says of his leap into the relatively untested world of commercial worm farming.

These days, MyNoke (noke is ‘earthworm’ in Maori) has its fingers in multiple pies. On one hand, it offers businesses and regional authorities a natural, sustainable way of dealing with waste products. On the other, it sells the resulting earthworm manure to growers, farmers and gardeners.

The company currently has four worm farm sites, on rural properties in Tokoroa, Tau po, Putaruru and Maketu, with two more proposed in other regions. It has designed worm composting units for agriculture and food processing industries and is exporting this technology to Germany. Michael is leading agriculture and waste management trials in the Netherlands and fielding enquiries from Sri Lanka, the United States and Chile.

A commercial success

On the day the Kiwifruit Journal speaks to him, Michael has sold 80 tonnes of vermicast – worm manure – to a Hawke’s Bay orchardist growing cherries, apples and kiwifruit. He has also arranged a meeting with the manager of an Auckland sports arena wanting help to deal with the food waste, packaging and lawn clippings generated on site.

In New Zealand, kiwifruit packhouses are turning their waste – leaves, dust, rejected fruit, paper packaging and staffroom scraps – over to the worm farmer. Meanwhile, orchardist customers are using vermicast – worm manure – when developing kiwifruit blocks.

Each new plant receives a bucket full of vermicast to improve root development, which in turn ensures more efficient uptake of water and fertiliser, creating less waste, fewer emissions into groundwater and more effective sequestering of carbon into orchard soils.

He reels off a list of other benefits; it adds fungi and other beneficial microorganisms to the soil, improves biodiversity, aids flowering and plant health. He says a worm farm speeds up natural processes.

“What happens in soil over five years happens in the worm farm within six months. So it’s natural technology upscaled.

“You’re adding value, it’s at least twice as good as compost. It’s ideal for drought conditions. It’s regenerative, it’s circular, it’s sustainable; three key motivators at the moment.”

Michael says his company has also started breeding soil-dwelling worms as well as their specialist compost worms. The deep burrowing blackhead worm is used to inoculate worm-starved orchards.

“Lots of orchards don’t have earthworms so that’s an increasing side of our business, to bring them back to orchards. The effect is that organic matter from pruning is incorporated in the soil much faster, so

it becomes humus. And the worms are aerating the soil where machines have compacted it. “

The worm is the key organism in the soil. Nature’s pretty smart.”

Turning to worms

When Zespri wanted to minimise waste from its main office building in Mount Maunganui, it turned to worms.

From early August, all staff and visitor food waste and grass clippings from outdoor recreation areas will be mixed with used, shredded office paper and hauled away and fed to MyNoke worms.

“Down the track, we’ll even be inviting staff who live in small apartments to bring in their kitchen waste from home,” says Zespri’s sustainability project coordinator Nicky Geary.

The resulting vermicast can be used on surrounding turf, offered to staff for their home gardens or given to a local school. She says Zespri is working with Tauranga City Council and other local businesses that aim to slash waste and use resources more efficiently.

“There’s a lot of collaboration with the other companies involved in the council’s Resource Wise business programme so we’re certainly spreading the word about MyNoke and it will help us.”

She said the Zespri office aims to reduce the amount of waste it sends to landfill by 85 percent by the end of this year.

Value for money

Curiosity drove Roger Hoebers to give vermicast a shot while re-establishing a 9ha Edgecumbe orchard that had been decimated by Psa.

Three years ago, while working as orchard operations manager, he heard talk of good results from worm manure before a visiting fertiliser spreader gave the fertile compost rave reviews.

“I wanted to try it out, to see for myself what all the fuss was about,” Roger says.

Now he knows.

“We saw some definite, noticeable advantages. I think it’s about getting value for money out of an organic product you can put on the ground to give better soil moisture retention and increased biological activity. We also saw increased worm counts, which helped create favourable root conditions for new developing plants to get established.”

He says the vermicast application meant the Gold3 kiwifruit orchard showed better resilience in very dry conditions.

“It seems to have the ability to rewet a lot easier than dry compost, like blotting paper. It was much easier to wet the ground than straight soil or compost.

“With our changing weather patterns, we need to be working smarter with water use. Using mulches or ways of retaining soil moisture becomes even more critical as the resource becomes more scarce.”

Roger, who is now technical development manager for post harvest company Eastpack, is convinced vermicast hastens the transition from greenfield development to fruit production.

“My gut says yeah I’d use it again, particularly in soils that have a shallow top soil layer or been altered with contouring. When you’re setting up a new block and you’re trying to reinstate soil structure, I think it’s super good there. The success of a development depends greatly on how quickly you can establish roots and top growth and having that extra boost is going to help.”