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Worm farming produces vermiliquid (the liquid component) and vermicast (the solid component).

A google search (with the quotes) for "What is in worm tea" or "What is in vermiliquid" returns zero results. Various sites say it has lots of minerals, but that's very non-specific.

When you add miscellaneous liquids to a worm farm, depending on the design, they may seep straight through to the area tapped for vermiliquid, so you could be getting out some of what you put in (in a more or less broken down form, depending on what it was, and how long you leave it). This is reasonably obvious.

On the other hand, solid material takes time to break down, and some minerals/compounds may be largely insoluble so won't make it into the vermiliquid at all. Are there any important nutrients/compounds that plants need that don't make it into the vermiliquid (and thus would require vermicast), and if so, what are they?

Has any extensive analysis been done on what compounds are in vermiliquid, and what they can be used for?

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Highly Irregular
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    No real answer, but: look if you can do an NPK analysis of the liqui yourself somehow. – mart Jan 30 '13 at 10:54
  • NPK, in my understanding, is the three elements that plants need the most of, but it isn't going to address nutritional deficiencies of other elements/compounds that may arise over long term harvesting. It would still be of interest, but would by no means give a solid understanding of what's in vermiliquid. – Highly Irregular Jan 31 '13 at 21:36

1 Answers1

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Many sites on the internet mention that the liquid from vermicompost is the ideal fluid for (fertilizing) your garden. However, I haven't seen any scientific evidence on this anywhere so I suspect it doesn't exists.

I did a quick google and found this document where on page 19 it says

The evidence for the nutritional value of vermiliquid products is largely anecdotal.

There is a paucity of literature available that has investigated the use and quality of vermiliquids.

The author of this book goes one step further and claims vermiliquid is just waste water and can go bad quickly so it should not be used on your plants.

Edit: I just found an interesting article describing the differences between worm tea (aka vermicast tea or compost tea) and leachate. In short the article says that leachate from a wormbin may contain harmful pathogens. Worm tea is something you make yourself by puting wormcastings and a food source like malasses in clean water and leaving it for a few days. If the water is air-rich (you'll have to place an aquarium pump or something in the water) then the good micro-organisms in the water will multiply. According to wikipedia compost tea is very weak in nutrients but can be used for

reducing incidence of harmful phytopathogenic fungi in the phyllosphere

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