Population Growth rate of African Night (Eudrilus eugeniae) Crawler Fed with Different Leguminous Leaves as Supplement

Abstract

Earthworms are not just converting garbage into valuable manure but also keep our environment healthy. The study was conducted to determine the growth rate of African Night Crawler (ANC) fed with different leguminous leaves as a supplement. A total of 15 worm bins were used for the 5 treatments replicated 3 times adopting the Completely Randomized Design (CRD). The worms were fed with different leguminous leaves as a supplement in a 25% volume to other substrates. The treatments of the study were the following: Treatment 0 (control), fed with rice straw and manure, Treatments 1, 2, 3 and 4 fed with ipil-ipil, kudzu, madre de cacao, and peanut, respectively, with the ration of 1 part cattle manure, 2 parts rice straw and 1 part legume or 1:2:1. The result showed significant differences in the final weight and in the final population of the worms. Earthworms fed with madre de cacao as supplement obtain the heaviest weight and highest population. It is noteworthy that peanut and Ipil-Ipil had more than doubled the population growth rate of African Night Crawler (ANC) while Madre de cacao had tripled the increase. The study showed that vermiculture utilizing a 1:2:1 ratio by weight of cattle manure, Rice straw added with different legumes had affected the population growth rate of African Night Crawler.