Newzealand flat worms

[Bill HH]

Has anyone seen any of these? I certainly havent seen any in my garden in Devon, I understans its mainly confined to the North.

[Aberdeenplotter]

Horrible looking things. Why do you want to know if anyone has seen one?

[Bill HH]

Horrible looking things. Why do you want to know if anyone has seen one?

Well they started in N Ireland in 1963 and now they are in Scotland and the North so i am trying to work out how long before they get to me. Hopefully not before i have thrown off my mortal coil and gone to the great potting shed in the sky.

[Aberdeenplotter]

Right, so you don't really want to know if anyone has seen one, you want to know which parts of the country are affected. Known distribution of these pests in 2006 can be seen on a map by following this link to the Defra website Distribution map

[Bill HH]

Right, so you don't really want to know if anyone has seen one, you want to know which parts of the country are affected. Known distribution of these pests in 2006 can be seen on a map by following this link to the Defra website Distribution map

That tells me where the the little critters were in 2006, I want to know where they are this morning! Do the gardeners up north aand in Scotland see them on a regular basis? Do they really wipe out our earth worm population to the extent that we are led to believe or is much of the press just scaremongering. If they do kill off our earth worms, do they help the soil like our regular worms.

[Aberdeenplotter]

They are certainly here locally in my council allotment where to see an ordinary earthworm is unusual. The result is that the soil is not being naturally aerated so there is a detrimental affect on the soil. As earthworm populations decrease, so does the NZ variety presumably because their food source has become exhausted.

As for where they are this morning, if everyone was to turn over a piece of wood or a brick lying on their plot, that is the type of location they will be found. The best way to trap them apparently is to put some soil in a compost bag or similar and place that on the ground and thereafter to check daily for them. Any found can be destroyed by immersion in salty water/boiling water.neat j*y*s fluid.

[Bren In Pots]

That tells me where the the little critters were in 2006, I want to know where they are this morning! .

Bill have a read at this thread it was last updated earlier this year :-

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...rms_60513.html

[PAULW]

I found them on my plot in Bournemouth a few years ago but have not seen one lately.

[WPG]

We used to find the flatworms and their egg cases all the time here, but I haven't seen one for several years now, thank goodness. Horrible things.

[Peppermint]

I'm afraid we have them in our garden. Hate them with a passion, I've seen what they do to the poor earthworms we had left. We still had a strong cohort of earth worms in the corner of our land last year. There are far fewer this year.

We spent hours last year trapping the flatworms under squares of black plastic and disposing of them in jars of salt. We were fighting a losing battle. A big part of our garden has neither earth worms or flat worms. The flat worms have slowly worked their way across.

We do have a healthy population of black beetles which feed on the flatworms and we continue to encourage those. We reported our flatworms, but they are widespread on this side of the island. You only have to look at the huge bales of silage (wrappped in plastic) to see how the can be moved very easily from field to farm etc.

[Katog]

We have loads of them here on the shores of Loch Fyne, Argyll. They like to sit under plastic, stones, wood where they wait for passing worms and suck the life out of them they are ugly evil little b***** their eggs are crunchy shiny black balls with clear fluid and lots of babies inside. Some folks round here say they have no earthworms but we have plenty cos we use lots of mulch so there's always rotting matter for them to eat.

[rary]

[QUOTE=Aberdeenplotter;1171081] As earthworm populations decrease, so does the NZ variety presumably because their food source has become exhausted. ]
I read somewhere that they can go into a form of dormancy for over a year till the worm population increases again

[Bill HH]

I find this to be quite an awful thing, I presume if they leave once they have killled off the earthworms then the earthworms could return and in some way a balance might be achieved. I hope scientist are working on some natural predatory nematode or such to give the blighters a bloody nose.

[Highlander]

I was clearing up today and found one, that probably answers my question as to why there are not many earthworm in my plot. Tried to feed it to the chickens but the avoided it!

[rary]

Are there no pellets or sprays available to combat this pest. How are they controlled in their natural habitat?