No, they are also soil builders. In nature, everything has a job to do. If we leave worms alone, the will happily go about their business of producing top rate soil that plants will die for…actually live for. You see the role of a composting worm is to devour decomposing organic material and leave behind rich soil. This soil, called castings (which is worm manure), is everything a plant could dream of. It provides moisture retention, microbes that allow the plant to drink more easily and the soil conditioner that allows for great aeration and body.
Northerns are “soil dwellers", meaning they like to dig in the dirt. They, I found, like to dig down deep where the soil is cool and when it is wet enough, tunnel their way to the surfaces. Although they like to dig in the dirt, they don’t like to dig new tunnels, but instead maintain networks of tunnels that connect them to their burrows. Within these burrows, they will drag leaves, grass and other organic material form the surface and to eat at their leisure. These networks of tunnels are great for the aeration of the soil, and provide for a great method of transferring materials form the subsoil to the top soil and vice versa. They are not great at the process of composting, at least not like the other worms.
African and European Night crawlers and Red worms are composting worms. The kings are the red worms. They reproduce like crazy, eat from 50-100% of their weight each day in organic material and can produce almost the same amount of castings. The castings can then be added to any soil or used as a top dressing to dramatically improve plant growth. Studies have shown a 3-5 times increase in growth rate of the plants planted in the casting enhanced soil over plants in natural soil or even potting soil. The worms themselves can make the world a green place.
Having bait around is good, but if that bait can also help grow the lawn, plants and the garden grow better as well, the choice of worms to raise becomes more clear.
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