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It's a dirty job

But the ravenous red wiggler is up to it. At a Dade City ranch, these worms turn manure into fertilizer and hint at potential as an Everglades helper.

DADE CITY - As the traffic rumbled by on Handcart Road, and a jet descended toward Tampa International, John Rowles told me to point my ear at terra firma. At first, I heard nothing. Then I heard the slightest of gurgling sounds, a whisper, if you will, of wet movement.

Worms were eating cow manure. They were eating cow manure as if it were a gourmet meal prepared by Julia Child. What I was hearing was the passage of manure through the ever-efficient innards of millions of worms.

It was another day at the CRM Worm Ranch, another day of hard-working worms going about their business of turning smelly manure into something odorless and good for soil.

"Those suckers know how to do it," Rowles gushed, proud to be called a worm man. In a 1-acre greenhouse in rural Pasco, he and two partners supervised the toil of nearly 2-million voracious red wigglers.

Rowles, a New Port Richey resident, was giving me a tour of the ranch. He and his friends started their business last August. They haven't made their fortunes yet, but they are confident they will when the rest of the world catches on. The reason? There's gold in what their worms can do with 12 tons of manure a week.

"It's amazing to watch," Rowles said. "You put a load of manure into their bins and at the end of day, it's pretty much gone."

What's left, after the worms add their own digestive enzymes to the mix, is poop, or what more refined professionals call "worm castings." It's a powdery material, like ground coffee, and pretty much smells like old-fashioned dirt. Gardeners add it to their soil as a concentrated and organic fertilizer - and, if they're smart, get out of the way or risk losing an eye.

According to the online publication Worm Digest (www.wormdigest.org) just about any casting-stimulated flora will come bursting out of the ground like Jack's bean stalk.

There were no survivors when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in February - except for a mess of worms that had been used in experiments. Recently discovered in debris, they were going on with their lives, eating, pooping and reproducing. There's a reason worms have survived for millions of years. They're tough suckers.

"It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowly organized creatures," wrote Charles Darwin, a big, fat worm lover.

John Rowles, 42, may not be as elegant as the evolutionist, but he is just as appreciative. "I like these buggers," he said.

When he was a kid, growing up in Michigan, he routinely impaled worms on a fish hook and offered them to walleyes. Now? Perish the thought. Every once in awhile, a passing angler pulls off the road and wants to buy a nice box of worms. The fisher usually is sent packing.

In truth, Rowles' red wigglers are too small to be much of a bait. Unlike the robust garden variety earthworms, his wigglers are about as long as a toothpick and as thick as angel-hair pasta. They may be small, but they're hungry. They eat half their weight in manure and garbage every day. If you've got as many as the CRM Worm Ranch has, Katie bar the door.

Potential is what has worm ranchers all over the nation a little starry-eyed. In some places, though not yet in Tampa Bay, red wigglers by the tons are let loose in landfills to clean up the soil. Even chicken, pig and dairy operations use worms to take care of smelly public relations problems. And of course the worm byproduct can be sold to gardeners.

"If you have worms in your yard, what does that tell you?" Rowles asked. "It tells you that you have a healthy yard. You probably have good, productive soil."

In Florida, worm ranching is a relatively new industry. "There are only about 15 of us," Rowles said. He and other ranchers are in the process of forming an association and will more than likely hire experts for marketing and advertising.

"The message we want to get out is that worm castings (poop) are as effective as chemicals without any of the dangers," Rowles said. "Pesticides are kind of like drugs. They promote plant growth, but it's only temporary and their use can have have a bad long-term effect. Worm castings are more like vitamins. They help the health of the soil on a long-term basis and it's natural."

On a recent Friday, Rowles drove to Gainesville for a "manure luncheon." On the menu was grouper and hamburger, but the conversation was how worms can help clean up the world, including, just possibly, the fragile Everglades, damaged by farm pollution. Scientists read papers, worm ranchers nodded, plans were laid. Everybody drove home thinking worm thoughts.

They thought about the beauty of worms, the efficiency of worms, the determination of worms, the utter simplicity of worms.

"All they do is eat, poop and have sex."

All right, so they have a little too much fun. But at least they help us grow tomatoes.

Rowles, a Baptist, has watched worms having sex. All he will say is, "It's really gross. And they really go to town when the moon is full."

Within hours of amore, it almost seems to him, baby worms are emerging from eggs, hungry. In three months, the babies are grown up and looking to sow a few wild oats of their own. Think of The Sorcerer's Apprentice in Fantasia. Worms multiply, out of control, instead of brooms.

"We've put our worms on a diet," Rowles said as we toured the ranch. "We're trying to control the population a little, at least until we find a bigger market for our product."

There is no shortage of manure in Florida, among the nation's biggest cattle states. Dairy farmers typically are eager give it away. They carry it to the CRM Worm Ranch by the truckload. Rowles and other workers, mostly friends and family, amble among the 300 rectangular bins and dump manure. They are careful to step away from the resulting feeding frenzy.

Afterward, another rancher collects poop-laden soil and dumps it into a cylinder. The cylinder, actually a filter, separates the poop from the worms and the soil. The worms and soil can be returned to their rightful bins; the poop is piled into a veritable mountain.

"Here, smell this," Rowles said.

I have a weak stomach, but I kept nausea in check. The worm byproduct smelled pleasantly of a forest floor and was so light the morning breeze could have wafted it away. At the worm ranch, the worm droppings are shoveled into plastic boxes and bags for later sale. CRM is in the process of selling its products to nurseries and gardeners; citrus growers in San Antonio and Myakka City are poised to start using it.

If red wigglers have one fault, it's their high-strung personalities. When I turned over soil and exposed them to the air they writhed in panic. When they calmed down, they darted back into the dark soil and presumably got back to eating, pooping and having sex.

Rowles did his best to comfort them. He kept their bins at a comfortable temperature, about 70 degrees, and provided water and all the manure they could handle. As a treat, he later intended to feed them dessert: pages from the morning newspaper.

"No nutrition," he said, "but plenty of fiber. And they love it."

-- For more information about CRM Worm Ranch, call (727) 534-4404 or send a fax to (813) 991-7879.