Terracycle Challenge Wrap-Up

TC - Terracycle; WC - Worm Compost; C - Control (water only);
MG - Miracle-Gro

This update is beyond overdue! Unfortunately I’ve been completely sidelined, working on an important project for the last little while!

I actually ended the challenge back on August 12, which was day 31. I figured the one month mark was a good time to call it quits, especially considering some of the issues that were cropping up towards the end. As I learned, with increased size comes increased responsibility! haha!

Most of the sunflowers were geting pretty cramped in their pots and keeping the soil moist was becoming a bit of a chore. Some sort of pest (I suspect a squirrel) was also digging in some of the pots. (see picture to right)

All issues aside, there were some interesting and surprising results from the challenge by the end.

I hate to admit it, but I really wasn’t expecting all that much from the Terracycle-only treatment, especially given the relatively infrequent TC feedings (while the Miracle-Gro sticks released more nutrients with every single watering). Don’t get me wrong - I definitely have a lot of faith in worm compost & tea, but just expected the fertilizer sticks to provide the sunflowers with more of the nutrients needed for healthy growth.

In my ‘Day 20′ update (the last one) I reported that the TC-only plant was growing like crazy after a very slow start. That growth continued, and as you can see from the big picture above, TC-only outgrew MG-only. In fact, the TC-only plant ended up being the tallest of all of them (even though the TC/WC/MG plant was the clear winner as far as total biomass goes).

One thing I should mention re: the Terracycle used for the experiment. The bottle mentions an “added nitrogen boost”. I’m definitely curious to know precisely what this means. Have they added some inorganic fertilizer into the mix to help give it a little extra ‘zing’? Whatever the source of the added nitrogen, it likely explains the rapid upward growth of the TC-only plant.

Unlike the Terracycle-only plant, the vermicompost-only plant (WC) never seemed to recover from its sluggish start. It was clearly larger than the control by the end, but seemed to have been impeded by something. I have a sneaking suspicion the worm compost I used was not yet mature, but it’s hard to say for sure.

As far as the Terracycle Challenge “Jr” goes, it too ended up surprising me by the end. For whatever reason I had it in my mind that there were no obvious differences between the plants from the three treatments (TC, WC, MG). Unlike the sunflowers, all the bean plants in the Jr challenge were proportionally very similar. I think that because I was so zoned in on looking for size differences, I ended up missing some very obvious colour differences - until the end of the experiment that is.

It finally dawned on me that three of the nine plants appeared healthier (few signs of disease or pest attack, rich green colour). Once I grouped them together I realized they were all from the Terracycle treatment. Even the MG treatment looked pretty rough (a little better than the worm compost plants though).

What’s cool is that the results of the Jr Challenge are also more valuable from a scientific standpoint, since multiple reps were tested - and as you can see from the photo, the results were quite consistent.

All in all, both my TC Challenges turned out to be very interesting and a lot of fun! Hopefully I’ll get a chance to test out TC again before too long - next time I’ll try to make it more scientifically rigorous.

While I certainly won’t make any sweeping claims based on the results of this challenge, I think it is at least fairly evident that Terracycle worm tea can help boost plant growth and potentially even overall plant health. It isn’t the cheapest fertilizer out there, but as I discovered a little goes a long way!

Previous Challenge Posts
Terracycle Challenge - Day 20
Terracycle Challenge - Day 8 - Quick Update
Terracycle Challenge - Day 0
Terracycle Challenge - Off To The Races…Well, Almost!
Terracycle Challenge

Technorati Tags: worm bin, worm composting, composting, worm compost, worm castings, vermicomposting, red wigglers, red worms, terracycle, fertilizer, miracle-gro, miracle grow, plant growth

Written by Bentley on August 28th, 2007 with 4 comments.
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