Frequently asked questions
Straight answers,by topic.
Everything growers, gardeners and advisers ask us, grouped so you can find yours fast. If it is not here, George is a phone call away.
- Answered by the people who brew it
- Farm, garden and adviser questions
- Rates, prices and delivery
- Figures from the results page
Getting started
Is it right for me, and how hard is the switch?
If you grow anything in soil, yes, at some scale. Home gardeners use the 1L pack in a watering can. Orchards, vegetable growers and pasture farmers run the 20L to 1000L sizes through the sprayer or fertigation they already have. Agronomists bring it to clients as data from the trial tables. Pick the line that fits on the products page, or call George with the crop and the hectares.
No. WormGro goes on with the gear you already own: boom, linkage or air-assist sprayer, pivot or drip, a seed dressing at the auger, or a watering can. Nothing in your routine changes on day one. Most farms add one foliar pass at the two-leaf stage and build from there.
Colour and vigour usually move within weeks of the first application. Yield, water holding and soil carbon show over a full growing cycle: in the 2021 capsicum trial, five months was enough to lift yield 27% and soil carbon 10%.
We will not promise you a number, because soils differ. What we do is help you set up a paired strip: your program on one side, WormGro on the other, same day, same rig, weighed off at harvest. The strip tells you, not us.
No. Growers typically supplement at least half of their chemical fertiliser with WormGro in the first season and taper over one to two seasons. WormGro Balance is built for exactly that, and WormGro Plus carries its own 10:10:10 for crops that need major nutrients now.
Cost and value
What does it cost, and is it cheaper than what I use?
In the records on this site, $50 to $60 a hectare. The capsicum trial ran at $50/ha against $70/ha for the grower's standard program. Brigitte Gamble's oats went on at $60/ha with one 20 L/ha pass of Balance. Pasture at 5 L/ha from a 20L drum of WormGro works out lower again.
In the trials where it was measured, yes: the capsicum program cost 29% less per hectare and out-yielded the standard program by 27%, and at Wodonga two 5 L/ha passes of Plus matched 100kg/ha of urea at a lower cost. Send George what you put on now and he will price the equivalent.
Freight and handling. A 1000L shuttle of WormGro is $4,777, about $4.78 a litre, against $13.40 a litre in a 5L drum. Broadacre programs are priced on the shuttle; small acreage sits in the 20L drum at $8.85 a litre.
Yes. Every price on the site includes GST. 1L packs ship express for free anywhere in Australia, 1000L shuttles freight at a $500 flat rate to NSW, Victoria and Queensland, and George confirms delivery for drums when you order.
On a farm, seed inoculation: 5L per tonne of seed puts the biology in the furrow for a few dollars a hectare. In a garden, a single 1L bottle, which covers about 500 square metres per application and ships free.
The science
Why this is not just worm juice
No. Worm juice, or leachate, is what drains off a worm bed. WormGro is brewed from finished castings through a proprietary process that multiplies the biology, which is why it carries over one million microbial species and more than 14,000 ppm of nitrogen, up to 200 times the nitrogen of a typical leachate. Independent DNA testing put its bacterial and fungal diversity ahead of every other product tested.
Three reasons we can point to. The brew, which is checked under the microscope batch by batch so you are not paying for dead product. The nitrogen fraction, which means the crop is fed while the biology establishes rather than left to wait. And the trial sheets: capsicum, ginger, macadamia, lucerne, oats and ryegrass, with the grower's standard practice measured alongside.
Chemical fertiliser feeds the plant and bypasses the soil; much of it leaches, volatilises or locks up, and the soil needs more each year. WormGro feeds the soil: the microbes fix nitrogen, free bound phosphorus and trace elements, build the aggregates that hold water, and carry up to 80 chelated minerals into the produce. The work compounds, so next season needs less from you.
The web of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes and larger organisms that cycles nutrients between soil and roots. Dr Elaine Ingham's work describes it, and WormGro is made on those principles: a complete, diverse community applied where the roots are.
Every batch is analysed under the microscope at Gin Gin before it leaves, to confirm the organisms needed to kick-start the fertility cycle are present and active. The range has also been through independent DNA testing of its microbial diversity.
On the farm
Products, rates, mixing and the hard paddocks
Yes. WormGro, Plus and Balance all come in 200L drums and 1000L shuttles, and Balance batches can be brewed to your soil test. Programs are priced per hectare so you can hold them against what you spend now.
WormGro for pasture, orchards, vegetables and seed where the aim is biology. Plus where the crop needs major nutrients now and you are cutting back on urea: pasture, cereals, canola, cotton and vegetables. Balance where a soil test shows deficits, or you are cutting back on synthetics and want minerals and microbes in one pass. The products page has a side-by-side table.
Foliar through a boom, linkage or air-assist sprayer; fertigation through pivots or drip; a drench; or as a seed dressing. Keep pressure under 80 psi with low-pressure, high-flow nozzles, put it on late afternoon or evening, and dilute to at least the minimum on the label. It is filtered to 400 microns.
Often. Jar test first, because some chemistry precipitates the biology and that is your early warning for blocked nozzles. MAP and Calciprill went on with Plus in the Wodonga trial without trouble.
Pasture dieback is one of the problems growers come to us with, and the approach is the same as for any run-down ground: rebuild the soil biology so the pasture can defend and feed itself. Talk to George about the paddock and he will set up a strip so you can see it on your own country before committing the whole block.
In the garden
Doses, natives, pots and the smell
20ml in a 10 litre can covers 10 square metres, every 2 to 4 weeks through the growing season. One 1L bottle does about 500 square metres per application. The gardening page has a slider that works it out for your patch.
Yes to all three. It is low in phosphorus, so natives take it happily; it is certified organic, so herbs, fruit and vegetables grow in a clean bed; and a few drops in the can gives indoor potting mix biology it never had. Always dilute, a minimum of 1:10.
Every 2 to 4 weeks is the label rate for a domestic garden through the growing season; the farm's general guidance for established gardens is every 4 to 6 weeks, adjusted to the plant and the weather. It does most for plants in their early growth stages and at planting, with spring and autumn applications carrying established plants.
No. WormGro is pH balanced and has a neutral effect on the soil, so it will not push acid-lovers or alkaline-lovers either way.
A drum or bottle has a healthy ammonia smell when you open it, which is the live biology at work. Diluted in the can it is mild, and it is gone once it is on the soil.
Ordering and delivery
Buying it, shipping it and keeping it
Through the site, or by phone with George on 0427 573 424. For drums and shuttles a quick conversation about the crop usually comes first, so the product and the rate match.
Australia-wide for 1L packs, express and free. Drums deliver in 5 to 10 working days. 1000L shuttles freight at a $500 flat rate to NSW, Victoria and Queensland; ask about other states before you order a shuttle.
Twelve to twenty-four months depending on storage. Keep it cool, shaded and never frozen, and stir before use because some sediment settles.
Yes. George offers a free 45-minute consultation on your crop, soil test or garden. Call, or send the form on the contact page with what you grow and he will ring you back.
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Ask the people who brew it.
George offers a free 45-minute consultation on your crop, soil test or garden. No question is too small.