All about jumping worms with Laura Van Riper from Minnesota DNR

Spring plant sales and swaps are a great time for jumping worms to spread in our landscapes.

Laura Van Riper, the Terrestrial Invasive Species Coordinator at the Minnesota DNR joins me for this replay episode of Minnesota Gardening Podcast. We discuss all aspect of Jumping Worms from where they're currently invading, what to do if you find them, how to locate them, and lots lots more.

Check out current maps and learn more at MinnesotaGardening.com.

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Transcript

5:6:25 - jumping worms

Brad Tabke: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome my friend to the Minnesota Gardening Podcast. It is my honor to have you here with us today. My name is Brad Tabke and here at Minnesota. To the gardening. We are working to help teach you how to feed pollinators, eliminate chemicals, save water, and store carbon in our local landscape so that we are able to make the world a better place.

So today we are going way back in the archives to the. Third episode of Minnesota Gardening Podcast. And so we are going back to talk all about jumping worms. And so we have Laura Van Riper joined us for this episode, way back in 2021, I believe it was. So it was a while ago that we did this, but all the information is still good and relevant and even more important today than it was then.

So if you look at the map, if you go to Minnesota gardening.com. And, search for jumping worms. You'll find the map [00:01:00] of where, jumping worms have spread through a significant portion of, southeast Minnesota, south southern Minnesota, and especially through the metro. And Wisconsin is nearly, completely infested with, each county in Wisconsin, having.

Jumping worms been, identified there. And so it's a really important thing. And right now we are having lots of garden plant sales and so I'm getting a lot of questions about, jumping worms and plant sales. And you just have to be really careful. It is a really important thing that you are being cognizant, and talking to the person you're getting plants from at plant sales, whether they're using.

, soil from their gardens, whether they have jumping worms or not, because it's virtually impossible this time of year to tell if the little egg casings cocoons are in those plants or not. So they travel in that top couple inches of the. Soil. And so it is really important to keep jumping worms, do everything you can to prevent the spread of jumping worms.

And so just wanted to have this episode shared with you today so that you can enjoy this and learn more about jumping worms and make sure to protect [00:02:00] yourself and your gardens from those, invasive, nasty pests. So enjoy this interview all about jumping worms. All right. Today I am really excited that we have another guest.

I keep getting constantly asked about this question. This is one of the biggest things that people are talking about right now and what they should be doing about 'em. So we are honored to have the, terrestrial invasive species coordinator from the Minnesota Department of Rancho. Natural resources.

And we have Laura Van Reper here with us today to talk about the, jumping worms, which are just a huge topic within the gardening world. And Laura, thank you so much for being with us here today to chat. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's awesome to have you here because it, this is one of the biggest fears that people have, going on right now with regard to landscape and what's going on, especially in the Twin Cities and south in this area.

But before we get into jumping worms, can you tell everybody what, your role as terrestrial invasive species coordinator is at the DNR? 

Laura Van Riper: Sure. So I work in the DN R'S Division of Ecological and Water Resources [00:03:00] in, as part of our invasive species program. As the terrestrial invasive species coordinator, I'm focused on land-based species.

So species on land. You contacted the DNR with a question about managing, buckhorn. I can help you with that kind of a question. We try to share information about insects like emerald ash for and then of course, there's also worms. All earthworms are non-native to Minnesota.

And jumping worms are the latest earthworms and it's definitely become a decent portion of my job to help share information on jumping worms. 

Brad Tabke: So thanks so much for doing that, Laura. It's really good to talk to someone who knows so much about what's going on with this whole jumping worm thing.

And so where is, are jumping worms in Minnesota now and where should people be concerned about them? 

Laura Van Riper: Yeah, so they've been confirmed in the Twin Cities metro area. And then also in southeastern Minnesota, especially in the Rochester area, we use a website called EDDM maps.org. It stands for Early Detection and Distribution Mapping [00:04:00] system.

And anyone can go to ed maps and click on distribution maps and type in jumping and you can get jumping worms. Showing up and you can see a nice map of Minnesota. You can view it either by counties to see, which counties have confirmed reports, and then you can also click on points and see, actual sites that have had jumping worms confirmed.

And it, it'll give you a sense of where they've been found, in the state. 

Brad Tabke: Got it. And what, why should people be concerned about jumping worms? What's the deal? 

Laura Van Riper: Yeah. So Minnesota has no native earthworms. We don't know if we've ever had them, but there certainly haven't been native ones since the glaciers covered the state, 10,000 years ago.

So when our forests evolved, they evolved without earthworms. That leaf litter would build up year after year. Slowly decomposed with fungi, and a lot of our native plants. Species are adapted to growing in that leaf litter layer. Native animal species depend on those plants and that habitat. And when earthworms came to Minnesota, they've been dramatically changing that.

So we've [00:05:00] had a number of species of European, species of earthworms in Minnesota. And there's been extensive research on their impacts in forests. They come, they eat that leaf litter layer, pull it down deep, and you get bare mineral soil. And this last year's leaves, on top. And a lot of our native plants just can't grow.

In that. Environment and so you end up dramatically changing the understory of the forest. You know which tree species are regenerating, how wildlife are using it. So we have, a lot of information on the impacts that earthworms can have when they come to a new. A new area with, jumping worms.

They're, much newer to our state only in the last, 15 years or so, have they been confirmed in Minnesota. They, also, eat that litter layer. One thing that's different about jumping worms is. They aren't just eating dead plant material. They can also eat things like the fine root hairs on plants.

So when jumping worms come to a site, one of the first signs is that the soil changes to [00:06:00] this more, kitty litter or coffee grounds, like texture, very fryable. You can get increased erosion, as we know water comes through, washing down those grains. A lot of plants can't grow very well in that kind of material.

So often that's the first thing that, that people see. Dr. Lee Relic from the University of Minnesota, who was the first person to, document jumping worms in Minnesota, talks about going to a garden that had jumping worms and, being able to just pull out the hostas by hand because the soil had gotten so, so granulated.

Wow. So that's one of the, big concerns. 

Brad Tabke: So how does one know if they have jumping worms at their at their home or at their location, wherever they're working? 

Laura Van Riper: Yeah, so one, one sign might be if you do start seeing, places where plants aren't growing well and you notice that soil really getting granulated, that's probably a good sign to look closer.

I feel like most people often see jumping worms when they're just doing regular gardening activities and working. In their gardens, they may notice them. [00:07:00] Then jumping worms are generally most common in the, the mulch layer up on top. They don't generally go much deeper than six inches or so into the soil.

So unlike say, a night crawl that might go really deep in the soil, jumping worms are more towards the top. So if someone wanted to look for them, you don't have to work too hard. You can go, maybe use a little hand rake, rake your mulch or leaf litter and see if there's worms. In there they wiggle really vigorously.

Hence the name Jumping worms. They move across the ground like a snake with that ssha motion to really confirm jumping worms. You need to have, have them. In front of you and they need to be mature and mature. Worms have what's called a tuum, a thick ring or band around their body.

And on jumping worms, that ring is about 13 to 15 segments from the mouth. Where in with things like night crawlers, it's farther apart. So the DNR Jumping Worm webpage got a nice link to a University of Minnesota jumping worm webpage that has, a really nice diagram showing how a jumping worm looks [00:08:00] different from say, a night crawler.

Brad Tabke: Got it. And I will put links to all these things in the show notes for this episode too. Oh, super. So people will be able to go and. And find that. So we'll be able to do that without any issues there. And so if, so people, if they see soil that looks weird in their gardens, if they see the worms toward the top, six inches, if they're digging, if they see worms that are acting funny and different, those are good signs that someone may have jumping worms.

And so if they find jumping worms or what they think is jumping worms, what? What are the next steps that people take? What do folks do then? 

Laura Van Riper: Yeah, so we've been encouraging people to send in photos to the DNR, and we can help confirm that identification. I think because jumping worms have gotten more publicity, this is the first time a lot of us have really, tried to figure out what species of earthworms are in our gardens, that we might have multiple species, and how you actually tell earthworm species apart from one another.

So we're happy to, help people. On that journey, people can take a photo of the worm. We've found that it is helpful to have the worm on, maybe a piece of cardboard or on cement as a neutral background. If you're using your phone, [00:09:00] don't use your zoom in feature, just take it as it is.

That zooming in decreases the photo quality. So send in that high resolution a photo of the worm. And know that the researchers are gonna be counting the segments between that Cella and the mouse. So that photo, you should be able to look at it and see, okay, I can see how they would be counting those segments.

The other thing that people should know about jumping worms, that's different from most of our worms here is that they have an annual life cycle. So instead of going down deep in the soil, overwintering, down there and coming back up in the spring as adults, jumping worms hatch from tiny eggs in the spring.

They're immature during the spring months getting bigger and bigger, and it's not until, late July that they're mature enough to have that Ella and to be able to definitively identify their species. So if someone saw a worm, at this time of year. It's likely to be mature, have that cella, we could confirm identification.

If someone had a suspicious worm, say in May, it may not have that cella, then we might not be able to [00:10:00] say at that point, what species of worm it is. 

Brad Tabke: Got it. So that we will get into the lifecycle in just a little bit here. So with like transportation, things like that of jumping worms and how they spread.

But first, so if someone finds jumping worms at their house, you want them to report it, but then is there. Once you have it, do you just have it and you are just perpetually outta luck there? Or is there something you can do? Is there any activity you can take to try and get rid of them, or what happens next there?

Laura Van Riper: Yeah, so if jumping worms are confirmed, there aren't any, known management techniques for them. There's no particular, mulch, that's known to reduce their numbers or provide more protection to your plants. There's no, chemical, approved or studied for that.

University of Minnesota researchers are looking into various. Amendments that, may reduce jumping worm impacts, but at this point, there's no silver bullet or research recommendations. What you can do, and one reason it's really important to understand if you have jumping rooms or not, is you can, alter your actions so you prevent spreading it to new sites.

If you had jumping worms in your garden, [00:11:00] you wouldn't want to dig up a plant, share it with a friend across town, or bring it up to a cabin, and potentially introduce jumping worms to new places. So you can prevent their spread. That's a really important action that you can take. The other piece of information.

We share, as to keep calm. We're learning about jumping worms. People have jumping worms, and are still able to garden. They still have plants You might see a difference in, which plants are doing okay with jumping worms and which aren't. We're still trying to get a better handle on that, and that kind of leads into an additional action is university of Minnesota extension.

Is soliciting information from gardeners. If you try something like you change your mulch type, share that with them and let them know what kind of results you're seeing. Or if you've noticed that, say your hostas are doing poorly, but a different plant you have seems to be doing just fine with jumping worms, that's helpful.

Information, to have as well. So as we start hearing from more people, we might be able to pull together more guidance or it might help, direct more formal studies of, those specific plants or actions. [00:12:00]

Brad Tabke: And I had also read from, I believe it was the University of Wisconsin, about being able to use mixture of water and mustard in order to try and bring the worms to the surface and reduce the population.

Is that anything you recommend or is that something that just doesn't work? Or how, what do you have any thoughts on that? 

Laura Van Riper: Yeah, it absolutely works. It's been used to study earthworms for a long time. Researchers will mark off a little square. Pour this oil and, or sorry, water and mustard mixture into the ground.

The mustard is really irritating to the worms. So they come up to the top to try to, get away from that mustard. So like researchers will use that to, be able to quantify, okay, we have, this amount of worms per square meter in this forest, and they can use it that way. It's especially important with worms that are pretty deep in the soil.

So if you do that, you'll get a pretty thorough picture. We found that for jumping worms, since they do tend to be more towards the surface, generally, especially on a cooler or a moisture day, if you're just out looking around in your mulch beds, you probably don't, you probably don't need to do the mustard to be able to find jumping worms if they're [00:13:00] present.

Brad Tabke: Got it. And if somebody does find jumping worms and they wanna dispose of them, what's the best way to, if they find one, in their backyard, what do they do with it? 

Laura Van Riper: Yeah, so you can put jumping worms into a plastic bag and then dispose of them in the trash. I.

Brad Tabke: Got it. Perfect. Good. So you, we talked a little bit about moving, jumping worms around and if you, it's really important to make sure that you are checking your garden and looking for the signs of them to make sure or you don't, you do or don't have them, so you're not moving your plants around and that kind of thing.

How in general, are jumping worms moving and how are they getting from one place to another? 

Laura Van Riper: Yeah, so jumping worms, and earthworms in general produce eggs in little egg cases called cocoons. And those are small and hard to see, so they can be in the soil, and you might not, realize that they're there.

So when soils being moved from one place to another, that can move. Can move jumping worms from one place to another. University of Minnesota Duluth did a study where they ordered earthworms online from various companies for, verma [00:14:00] composting purposes. And you and found that there were cases where jumping worms were a contaminant.

It wasn't the species they ordered, but jumping. Oh, no. Worms were present. So sometimes people That's no good. Yeah. Sorry. So sometimes, people think they're getting one species of worm and there might be another one present. In some places, if the, if jumping worms get into, say, a community yard waste site and the yard waste compost is not getting heated, according to the process for further reducing pathogens where piles are, have their temperature recorded and are turned on a schedule, and it makes sure if they're thoroughly heated, if that compost isn't really thoroughly heated, jumping worms and their eggs can survive in it.

So if people come to pick up that compost, they might potentially be bringing the worms and the eggs. Back to their homes. And so that's a way it can spread throughout a community as well. 

Brad Tabke: On that same thread of things, should people be concerned about purchasing topsoil or compost or even plants from nurseries or anything like that?

What level of concern should people have about that from the commercial side of things? 

Laura Van Riper: Yeah, so we, we do get that question and we've even added it to the frequently asked questions section [00:15:00] of the University of Minnesota. Jumping worm webpage, how do I get something that's free of jumping worms?

One thing you can do is, contact the suppliers and ask them if they're aware of jumping worms. What kind of steps do they take to prevent jumping worms from getting into their materials? Are they regularly inspecting their products for jumping worms? So those kind of things.

If the companies are being careful about materials coming in, clean and not potentially introducing jumping worms to a site. That's really important. That's, I think probably the most direct way is to talk to those suppliers, about about jumping worms and hear from them, what they're doing to prevent the spread.

Brad Tabke: And so at this point, are you, is A DNR recommending anything for homeowners, like with sharing plants and different things like that? Because obviously in the spring you, it's really difficult to tell if something, are there any. Are there any action items, action steps that you have that you recommend for homeowners to take if they are going to a plant swap or going to something like that where split plants are sold and that kind of thing?

[00:16:00] Are there any recommendations that way? 

Laura Van Riper: There are, yeah. And University of Minnesota Extension and Master Gardeners have been working to help share that information. The general advice is if you have confirmed jumping worms in your yard. It's probably safest not to contribute plants to those kind of activities.

If you don't, if you look for jumping worms in your yard, you're pretty confident you don't, then the next step would be to share plants as bare root plants. So dig the plants out, and then use water to rinse the soil off, in your own yard. So the soil's staying, staying put. And then either share the plant as a bare root plant, or repot it into sterile potting soil so you're not moving that soil.

From place to place so that soil is what could contain the jumping worm eggs. Which again, are tiny. So it would be hard to, to see, whereas you might see an actual adult worm, and be able to pick that out. But it's the the egg cases that are harder to see. So that's the general advice if you do, want to participate in those, 

selling them as bare root plants or repotting them into sterile potting soil. It's, sometimes I get the [00:17:00] question of, I went to a plant sale, or a neighborhood plant swap and I wanna knock off the soil that came with it. What do I do with it? And that's a lot harder. It's much better to just not bring that soil versus.

Having the soil come to your home when you're not sure, if it has jumping room eggs in it or not, and you're trying to figure out how to wash off the plant in your home. And then what do you do with that water that's got soil in it? Much, much more straightforward to be, confident in the first place, with what you're buying.

Brad Tabke: Perfect. So we have, Laura covered a lot of ground here on, on things, so if there's just a ton of information. So I'm gonna ask, one kind of clarifying question here. Is there. It seems to be a, around jumping worms, a lot of concern in the public. And it's not to the point I think of unwarranted concern at all, but what level do you think people should be worried about jumping worms at this point?

And do you see that increasing over time or what do you see as where we're at today in the future? Looks like? 

Laura Van Riper: Yeah. One, one thing I think that's helpful about jumping worms is that they've, maybe gotten people thinking a bit more about. Materials that they're bringing onto their site or materials that they're bringing [00:18:00] off.

Weed seeds have always been an issue that they can get into soils or other materials that are moved from place to place. So you know, a lot of the same, the actions you take on jumping worms are things you might also take to prevent, weed seeds from coming to your site.

So there's these general prevention, actions, I think, are important for jumping worms and for other things. So the whole idea of come clean, leave clean, right? If you're recreating, go to the site with clean boots, come home with clean boots. These, if you're sharing materials with somebody, clean them off, really thinking through, moving plants from place to place in the soil.

And what could move with them. So I think a lot of, the actions people take, are good ones to take, even if jumping worms weren't here, to understand, where the materials came from, that you're bringing to your site. What might come with them?

I think we're still learning a lot about jumping worms, and their impacts in Minnesota. How impacts, here may differ from other places because of our soil or climate or the plant species we're growing. I think we still have a lot to learn [00:19:00] about. Are there some garden management practices that might reduce jumping worms?

It's really exciting that University of Minnesota is working on, this research and I'm excited to see, what they learn over the next few years. I think it's an important species for people to be aware of. I think it's an important species for people to work to prevent, from coming to their site.

But I also think that we're going to learn a lot more and for people who do have jumping worms confirmed on their sites, they're likely to still be able to have plants on their site. Things just might change a bit and we're still, trying to learn those impacts and learn ways to mitigate those impacts.

Brad Tabke: Laura, thank you so much for your just. Wealth and breadth of knowledge that you've got about jumping worms and, other terrestrial. And we will definitely have to have you back to talk about other, invasive species. 'cause we're running outta time here today that you are, because it's really neat to see the things that you are working on.

We have, at the end of our podcast, we do a couple of quick quickfire type questions. First one is, what is your favorite place to visit in Minnesota? 

Laura Van Riper: Oh wow. That's a great question. Oh, it is so [00:20:00] cliche, but I love the Mississippi Head waters. It's just a cool spot. It's neat when you're standing there to think about where that spot, what water's going, it was fun for me to see it, by myself as an adult.

And it was even more fun to introduce my son to it, a couple years ago, so 

It's definitely one of my favorite places. 

Brad Tabke: That's a great one. And, cathedral Pines. What are they? Is it the little area called? We're going out there in a couple weeks as well, so I'll check out just to make sure I remember what, but the giant white pines are just amazing up there.

Next question, what is your favorite food grown in Minnesota? 

Laura Van Riper: Honey. Crisp apples. 

Brad Tabke: Perfect. What is essential reading for you, Laura? 

Laura Van Riper: I, I definitely science nonfiction. Is one of my, that's surprising. My favorite genres. Not too shocking. Do you want a recommendation of what I found interesting?

Brad Tabke: Absolutely. Yeah. 

Laura Van Riper: The book Bad Blood about, Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes, who's coming up for trial soon. So interesting. Look at both fast science and business. All together. 

Brad Tabke: And then the last question is a question that comes from my 10-year-old. And this is the most gardening related question we've [00:21:00] got here.

So if you were a plant, what plant would you be? 

Laura Van Riper: Oh, what a fun question. I think, I don't know if I would be, but I would like to be a cup plant. There, one of my favorite native plants. I've got a. A nice patch in the backyard. I am not a tall person, so that'd be my way to experience life a little taller.

I love how they look. I love how they, cut the water. And I love it when the birds come to visit them when they've gone to seed. I.

Brad Tabke: Beautiful. I will, put a link to cut plants in there too. 'cause that's not one you hear of very often. That's a great thing. Okay. So wonderful. Laura Van Reper from the Tres Invasive Species Coordinator for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Thank you so much for being here and sharing your knowledge on jumping worms and what people can do if, they unfortunately do find them at their house or and to prevent their spread. 

Laura Van Riper: Thanks. I think we did a good job covering it. It's a. Big. It's a big topic and I really appreciate people's, interest in it.

Brad Tabke: Perfect. Thank you so much, Laura, and have a wonderful rest of your day. 

Laura Van Riper: Thanks, you too. Bye-bye. 

Brad Tabke: See what I mean? That was a really great interview, and so you can go back into our archives and listen to every episode of the Minnesota Gardening [00:22:00] Podcast and just hopefully learn a bunch through the time that we've been here.

And I just appreciate you listening and if you like what you learn and what you. Great gain from Minnesota. Gardening. I highly encourage you to become a member of Minnesota Gardening. So Minnesota Gardening memberships, you can get two weeks free. And just go to Minnesota gardening.com and click on Minnesota Gardening membership down at the bottom and you will become a member And check us out and get all of the great things that we've got going on here, delivered directly to you.

And this is mostly important if you're a person that is wanting to transition from a standard. Landscape where you use fertilizer, where you use chemicals, where you are having non-native plants in your landscape. If you want to transition to a better way of having more environmental care in your landscape to support the pollinators, to support eliminating chemicals, to reduce lawn, and also to grow food.

And so we work on all those things. Here at Minnesota Gardening, and we give you everything that you need [00:23:00] to make sure you're having a safer, more environmentally responsible landscape and local ecosystem for your kids, for your future, for songbird, for pollinators, for your pets, for everybody involved in your life.

And that's what we do here at Minnesota. Gardening is we help you transition to a better way of living. Through being more environmentally conscious in your local ecosystem. So you can, grab that wherever you are@minnesotagardening.com. And I hope to see you as a member soon. Right now is the best time of year to join and we have a yearly calendar that we go through and make sure that we are getting you all the information you need for every season, every month, every week of the year.

To do better in your landscape. So hope you can join us@minnesotagardening.com. I'll see you next week.