Culturing beneficial nematodes

[floral]

Well, the nematodes did seem to enjoy swarming out of the bugs in the cereal mush, but I never saw many straying far from the bugs - maybe because they weren't visible, or maybe because they need a host insect. After a couple more days, I didn't see much activity at all, so the whole experiment went into the worm pile. Probably for the best - I wasn't seeing many good ways to transfer nematodes out of this mush of cereal anyway. Strain them through fine mesh? Meh, why not just apply them to the soil and let them reproduce naturally.

Fun to see the nematodes doing their "Alien" routine with a bug, but otherwise I dunno about the usefulness of this project.

 

[joluvs2gro]

There's mushrooms that grow on deadbugs but will also grow on grains. If u have a microscope can u see if they multiply in the oatmeal? Also, what do nematodes look like to the naked eye? I added some to a hydro res with an airstone and like a week later I opened it to find a huge clump of whipped cream exaclty like what was in the beneficial nematode bag, did they multiply in the res? There are dead flies on top of the container, can't see them there though?

 

[tusu]

This is awesome !! Thanks OP and everybody for the detailed info.

I have a worm factory 360 and red wigglers on the way and will try the worm bin approach as well as the baby oatmeal and see how well I can keep the nematodes happy.