Worm Casting Germination & Seedling Experiment 1

I am WillingWormWorkerTwo and I have been using worm castings for planting for a couple of years now.  I did a planting experiment with a variety of seeds and four mediums.  The mediums were as follows:

   

  1) Control,60 % ACE Potting Soil, and 30% peat moss

  2) Control mixture plus 20% by weight worm castings, dried hard and stored over the winter

  3) Control mixture plus 20% by weight worm castings freshly prepared

  4) Control mixture plus 20% by weight seacoast compost.

I have observed them several times and taken pictures.  The bottom line is that mixture two replicates the first super lettuce experiment I did, 3 is poorer than 2, and 1 and 4 are about equivalent.  I am going to repeat the comparison with control soil and freshly prepared worm castings and 20, 30 and 40% by weight with the seeds that seem to show the most differences.  The hypothesis being that the moisture content of the freshly prepared worm castings makes the concentration not comparable to 2.  I will try to figure out how to measure pH and may even send the mixtures to UMO for testing.  Of course I used up the hard dried worm castings!

This is the lettuce experiment after about 3 weeks, left 20% hard dried worm castings and potting soil, right just potting soil.

Below are the four seedling experiments after 4 days, first two days in dark covered with Saran wrap, second two days 12 hours of light each day, saran wrap removed after day 4.

Control 2/3 Potting Soil, 1/3 Peat Moss

Control & 20% by weight Hard Dried Worm Castings

Control & 20% by Weight New, not hard dried worm castings

Control & 20% by Weight Seacoast Compost

The same flats are shown after 14 days  of 12 hours on and 12 hour off of light. The order is as above from left to right, 1, 2 and in the second row 3, 4.