Diversity of Earthworm in Lopburi Province for Potential of the Production of Water Hyacinth Vermicompost

Water hyacinth ( Eichhornia crassipes (Mart. Soims) ) is one of the world’ s most destructive andnoxious weed that has prolific growth rate. Many efforts were made to eradicate this weed but they havenot been successful. However, referring to a resource view, they absorb Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassiumfrom water. They have a potential for vermicompost production. However, most earthworm species inagriculture farm were imported from abroad. Nevertheless, many terrestrial earthworm species in manyarea have never been asserted. The aim of this research is collecting the terrestrial earthworm in daily farmsat Phattana Nikhom district, Tha Luang district, Lam Sonthi district and Chai Badan district, Lopburi provinceby using morphological method. Soils were collected to analyze for physicochemical properties. Further,test feasibility of indigenous earthworm to converse water hyacinth into vermicompost. The experimentwas Completely Randomized Design with 3 replications. The results found 2 families 4 genera and 9 species.There were 2 species which had never been found in Thailand ; Metaphire peguana sp. 1 and Metaphirepeguana sp. 2. The data indicated Phattana Nikhom district discovered the highest earthworm species ( 3genera 6 species), Shannon-Weiner index (H’) was 1.45 and everness index (E’) was 0.81. In addition, testingability of conversion water hyacinth into vermicompost. The experiment revealed that Metaphire peguanasp. 1 (Lam Sonthi) has the highest potential for decomposition water hyacinth and the highest biomass ofvermicompost.