Andrew Roesner wrote:
please please please, tell me what you think. The innovation I'm pursuing is feeding the worms in a manner to prevent them from slowing down and to maximize the volume of their growth. I understand that a large population of underfed worms will begin to die off and cannibalize back to the soil. my goal is to create the largest worm mass possible at the end, given the physical constraints of the bins.
You ask for thoughts so I'll give you some. While I think this is workable, with effort and planning, I'm not sure I'd build this exactly as it's described here.
The bin structure you're describing seems to me a stacked version of a common approach, which is straightforward and time-tested.
That said, I think there is potential for smell and excess liquid in a relatively large scale version. The lack of smell of indoor vermiculture usually has comes from a good balance of high
energy stuff with
carbon rich stuff. That mix breaks down slowly. Even then, a lot of liquid can come out. If you have many of those, you have many to monitor and keep balanced, and lots of potentially fragrant liquid accumulating at the bottom. You'd also need to keep an eye on the food levels in each, to prevent the worms from simply migrating from one bin to another and forming a normal-density roving herd of worms. Those are of
course things you can take care of, if you want to, but it might seem like a hassle.
As you mention, feeding is the key to getting a high worm population. I've been doing vermiculture for a few years now and the highest density worm population for me has followed giving them large quantities of mulberries. That
led to some craziness, though, as the berries broke down quickly and produced a strong smell and some wild, foamy fermentation. The worms may have been drunk and engaging in intoxicated promiscuity, or maybe it was lots of bacteria etc supported by the fruit. Who knows. But there were
a lot of them afterwards.
I suspect anything that's going to be high energy
enough to drive a good population could be similar: vermiculture is basically souped up composting and intense feedstock can lead to difficulties in keeping things balanced. Disruption of balance doesn't kill the system necessarily, and can even result in desirable results (as in my mulberry extravaganza). But it can also come with downsides. I don't know if I'd want those downsides happening in my living space, even in a utility room.
My suggestion would be to think about which aspect is most important, worm production or indoor placement, and design around that.
If it being indoors is most important, I'd think about a lower level of intensity. Fewer bins, fewer worms, more frequent rotation out of worms and castings, and lower speed. That'd be easy to keep running the way you want.
If it's worms and casting production at a relatively high rate that is important, I'd think about doing it outside, or in a shed or something, if you need to protect it from winter. Then smell won't be an issue and dealing with fulsome but valuable liquid will be easy.