PENGARUH PENAMBAHAN SUPLEMEN ORGANIK DAN ANORGANIK TERHADAP KELANGSUNGAN HIDUP DAN PERTUMBUHAN CACING TANAH DALAM MEDIUM GAMBUT

Abstract

This study has been carried out to test the effects of organic and inorganic supplements on the survival and growth of earthworms in peat substrate. We simultaneously tested the effects of peat taken from different depths, i.e. 0-10 cm, 30-40 cm and the mixture of both. We used either litter debris or powdered chicken manure as organic supplement, and wood ash as inorganic supplement in the experiment with five replications for each treatment combination. Earthworms used in our experiments were collected from urban homegarden soils (mineral soils), which were sorted after their morphological similarities and sizes (average length 11 cm and average weight 0.8 g/individual). Observation was conducted every 20 days for 120 days. Regardless the treatments, survival rate of earthworms in peat was invariably very low, thus underlined that peat was not a suitable substrate for the animals, but supplementing the acidic substrate with litter debris could prolong the survival rate (40%) up to 120 days.