soil with no worms?

Is it possible to have soil with no worms?

Yes. This can be rather common in conventional agricultural. Synthetic fertilizers, poison sprays, discing, plowing, mechanical tilling, are all things that kill earthworms and when done repeatedly can result in a soil with no earthworms present.

Much of North America was not home to earthworms before European settlement.  Particularly here in the Great Lakes region the forests evolved without such worms.

Mk Neal wrote:Much of North America was not home to earthworms before European settlement.  Particularly here in the Great Lakes region the forests evolved without such worms.

Thank you, I was just going to say this, but hesitated because I don't have a source. I recall being told that this may be the reason that sugar maples are dying off in the great lakes region: they are adapted to a very rich thin layer of topsoil, but that imported earthworms are mixing up the layers.

Mk Neal wrote:Much of North America was not home to earthworms before European settlement.  Particularly here in the Great Lakes region the forests evolved without such worms.

Yes - the boreal forest is also included in this.

During the last glaciation (10,000 years ago) they were essentially removed from much of the continent.


I assisted in some invasive earthworm research a while back - it was more rewarding than you may think..... Essentially the worms are spreading where we transport them (primarily along roads). In our sampling it was fairly obvious once you got your hands into the soil whether or not we were going to find evidence of earthworms. They are very good (bad) at turning through the top layers of soil and disturbing the leaf-litter layer.


I'm not up to date on the research, but it is out there to be found.


Perhaps earthworms are an example of a species whose presence we assume means good things, but of course in the right context we see that it may not be so.

Thanks for the info guy's. Have not lived where there wasn't any worms, should I introduce them to my garden beds?