Asian Jumping Worms

These non-native, highly invasive earthworms live in shallow layers of organic soil and mulch, where they quickly digest organic matter and replace it with their castings (worm poop), in which all nutrients are bound up and made unavailable to plants. This new top layer is said to look like large coffee grounds. With nutrients no longer available, seed germination or plant development is greatly impaired. In the long term, this creates an environment that is more vulnerable to invasive plant establishment and reduced native plant vigor. Presentation by Bob Bruner for Marion County Purdue Extention.

[@charlesburkhart800]

Thank you for this very thorough video. I am just east of Cleveland, Ohio, Summit County, about zone 5b. I noticed Asian Jumping worms in our gardens last year. Plenty of videos on youtube to identify them. Don't know if they were in our yard when we got here 7 years ago or came to us in bags of leaves for mulch collected in our neighborhood or trucked in wood chip mulch, plants I have purchased, or soil and sand I have brought in. I use both leaves and wood chips in 4+ inch layers over our suburban land fill lot. We need organic material added to our clay/back fill soil. Sad! But, skunks and maybe racoons have found the worms which stay close to the surface. They "stir" my mulch at night and dig holes 4- 6 inches apart where I am sure they are eating the jumping worms. Yeah! So, I don't give plants/dirt away. We still have European earth worms and red wigglers. I just add as much organic material as I can get my hands on. I am not giving up gardening. Sounds like I should give up composting during the winter?

[@yulai3818]

So, in China must not have any forest by now due to all the native jumping worms there. Humans are so silly sometimes, they think they can do better than mother nature because of their "science" that is destroying nature with all this pesticides and now target worms that later may find out they are good for the soil.