The persistent snail...

[mutant]

god damn it, he seems to enjoy it. He especially picks this plant since I took one kk339 down.

munching

then I told him, hey, it's my cactus whose top you just ate!!!!

he backtracked, but not for long. Not more than half a minute, he started doing his thing again!

I threw him away, but I know they will come again.

Edited November 22, 2010 by mutant

[lophty_tricho]

The Horror

[obtuse]

bastard

[mr b.caapi]

I cant believe you left him on there to do that while you filmed it !!!

I usually put a couple of snail pellets on my cactus tips when its snail season, but jeez ive still seen some good ones ruined , if they do a good enough job you end up with the growing tipped too damaged to continue and pups will emerge .

[solomon]

time for some salt?

does anyone else have any good methods of protection from snails?

[Magicdirt]

Copper rings will stop the bastards or you can wrap copper wire around the rim of the pot.

They say it electrocutes them.

slug and snail rings

[mr b.caapi]

Copper rings will stop the bastards or you can wrap copper wire around the rim of the pot.

They say it electrocutes them.

slug and snail rings

 

Cool idea ! but shit theyre expensive !

[∂an]

hehe go Mr Snail! given that the green flesh at the growing tip is probably high in alkaloids, i wonder if the snail feels an effect? if 1kg of cactus is feeds a 70kg person, then a 50g snail needs just 0.7g to get its fill. snail shaman?

[Alice]

Cool idea ! but shit theyre expensive !

 

You can make your own very cheaply, copper is inexpensive for this purpose, the sheeting doesn't need to be thick. Or just get some copper bonsai wire or similar, and make a ring around the base of the cactus.

[Rabelais]

I might have your measure mutant.

About a month ago I went to take in some cacti as the rain was setting in a for a few days. I was greeted by a similar sight:

Rat fuck. The dirty bastard slimed 2 meters through all my shitty Bunnings pachs - without touching one! It went STRAIGHT for the Loph - slivered it's slimy body up the ribs, between the spines and went for the gold medal.

I caught it in the act, so I made an example to it's friends.

Edited November 23, 2010 by Dale Cooper

[lophty_tricho]

I likë your pics, its quite a good looking creature, in the detail. Snail shaman :-P

[ThunderIdeal]

Copper rings will stop the bastards or you can wrap copper wire around the rim of the pot.

They say it electrocutes them.

slug and snail rings

 

i'm not gonna say that's wrong but i doubt it electrocutes them. AFAIK copper is simply poisonous to most forms of life, snails won't touch the ring and neither will a plant's root system. i've even heard that copper nails used to be sold to kill trees, they dissolve without a trace and the tree is proper fucked. if true, it makes sense that they should not be sold.

[Magicdirt]

i'm not gonna say that's wrong but i doubt it electrocutes them. AFAIK copper is simply poisonous to most forms of life, snails won't touch the ring and neither will a plant's root system. i've even heard that copper nails used to be sold to kill trees, they dissolve without a trace and the tree is proper fucked. if true, it makes sense that they should not be sold.

 

Yeah I've heard a few different explanations as to how the copper supposedly electrocutes them, but none of them really made much sense, that's why I said - they say it electrocutes them.

If it were a bi-metal strip with an insulator between the two types of metal, the snail being covered in an electrolyte slime would would complete a circuit and create a corrosion cell when it contacted both metals and then the snail would get bit of a tingle.

As far as copper being toxic to roots I know copper solutions can be used very successfully to poison plants, but I lived next door to a gardener who sprayed copper sulphate all over his ornamentals and drenched his soil as a precautionary measure every year in spring and his garden looked great.

Using copper around plants that could be ingested might not advisable though.

Maybe a plastic tube with a copper wire and a stainless wire wrapped around it would produce the electrocution effect and be less toxic to the soil.

The plastic could be pushed into the soil and the wire wrapped around it above soil level so as the copper doesn't directly contact the soil.

[ThunderIdeal]

can't comment on your ideas for electrocuting stuff, guess you'd have to try it

surprisingly the copper-based fungicides are allowed, IIRC, at a rate of 8kg per hectare (per year?) under organic growing guidelines. i guess they can't be all that bad?

[mutant]

If there's one reason I did not remove the snail at once, Mr. bcaapi, it's that it had already had eaten the top and was now munching on the sides of the tip. And given I never watched snails do the damage and only watched the results, I had to make a photoshoot.

A beautiful snail, it is... Plus it's not my only kk339. I think I might kill it if it ate a tip of which I only had one.

[kindness]

my chooks love em ;) - I've been snail hunting in my garden most nights for about the last two weeks, collecting the little buggers and putting them in a container which has a salty solution in it.. this then is feed to the chookies in the morning and they gimme eggs, the circle is complete lol.

We gots a blue tounge or two living in the garden as well who takes care of them for us during the day.

Soz Mutant I can't share your admiration of the snail, i've lost too much food to them this year already!

Other methods for keeping snails off:

Wood chip mulch, (when it's dry it works best) snails won't slime their little arses over it cause they are soft and sensitive underneath <- proven here as they won't traipse across where I've mulch with woodchips to get at delicious little basil, pumpkin, lettuce, corn etc seedlings.

Coffeee grounds - they die from the caffiene content apparently.

Crushed egg shells, (gotta wash em inside first) - again the sharpness of them puts the snails off.

salt - used to good affect here but you got to put more around the plants/seedlings after rain and I have a feeling that long term this is not a good solution as too much salt in the soil is going to be a bad thing for the plants... but in some situations, like around the base of my seed raising shelves is works a treat. Oh and another word of caution, if you put salt around the base of pots elevate the pots with something first or the salt will dissolve when wet and get into the bottom of your pots and could be real bad for the plants contained therein.

oats - apparently this works, it gums them up or something... I've found this to go okay, although it then attracks slugs who eat the porridge and sometimes the plants you are trying to protect.

Biological control - try and attract things that eat snails. If you are in Australia Leopard slugs will mung on snails, good news as we got plenty of them. Lizards will eat snails. Birds will eat em.

Go snail hunting at night after watering your plants.

Check around your pots, (if you garden in pots) and around damp shady areas in your garden during the day for em.

Here is a good article on snail control which also mentions copper, http://www.tmorganics.com/on-farm/pests-and-diseases/snail-control.html

Hope this has been helpful to someone.

[mescalito]

You could always use the old beer trap,saw-dust or crushed egg shells.

[kindness]

How could I forget the ol' beer trap. Anyone want to donate some beer to the anti-snail cause here? oh hang on, i don't drink anymore

[mutant]

Yep i remembered the beer thing now. I might spare a can or two for the cause. Very helpful post kindness indeed.

[ohwro]

I've had many a battle with those snails and slugs. The beer traps never did any good for me. The best thing I've found is copper tape sold at the local nursery, 20ft or so for ~5 USD. I put a ring of it around two support buckets, put a board over those to make a bench, then put a bunch of planters up on the board. Works prefectly. 4 ft of copper tape protects ~10 plants this way. Before it came to this I assalted many a vile slug.

[mescalito]

A couple of nights ago I was watching a slug sliding across my bench in the shed,and as soon as it came to a cheap thin Chux wipe it wouldn't go across it!

This got me to thinking .....cut out a cicle for the plant and put one over it so it surrounds the plant!

I have some twin and earth from me tradey days here,like heaps,but it's multi-core...could be stripped and twisted together though if that's any help?

[tripsis]

I've just come back from a 5 month trip in India and the snails have had a field day on my cacti. Most of my grafts have been eaten, especially the little Lophs, but the tips of many of my Trichs have been damaged too, as well as most of my Pereskiopsis. The copper tape works though. Any pots which have it around them and the vege garden beds are all snail free. I'll be sure to put it around all my cacti now.

[Micromegas]

Sounds like a good trip tripsis.

You can use bluetak to temporarily protect the apical meristem of cacti and stop the worst of the damage if the insect of concern is a seasonal beast and buggers off at certain times of the year. I've done this to good effect with earwigs and it would probably work with snails.

[mutant]

kool tips every one. The particular kk339 tip seems to have made it!

[lophty_tricho]

its not a kk339 but..