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Garden Slugs
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Rid Your Garden of Slugs
Marilyn Pokorney
Slugs are major pests of horticultural plants throughout the
world. They are destructive pests of home gardens, landscapes,
nurseries, greenhouses, and field crops.
Slugs also pose a health threat to humans, pets and wildlife by
serving as intermediate hosts for parasites such as lungworm.
Slugs are inactive in cold weather and hibernate in the soil.
Heavy mulching and watering, required for productive and
beautiful gardens create favorable conditions for slugs.
Slugs destroy plants by killing seeds or seedlings, by destroying
stems or growing points, or by reducing the leaf area. Slug
feeding may also initiate mold growth or rotting.
Slugs feed on a variety of living plants chewing holes in leaves,
flowers, fruit and young bark. They are also serious pests of
ripening fruits, such as strawberries and tomatoes, that are
close to the ground. However, they will also feed on foliage and
fruit of some trees favoring citrus. Some plants that are
seriously damaged include artichokes, asparagus, basil, beans,
cabbage, dahlia, delphinium, hosta, lettuce, marigolds, and many
more plants too numerous to list here. To determine if damage is
caused by a slug or other insect, look for a clear, silvery
mucous trail.
Under ideal conditions, chemical baits, containing metaldehyde,
can be somewhat effective because this aldehyde paralyzes the
slugs and they eventually die from dehydration. However, under
cool and wet conditions when slugs are most active and
troublesome, they can often recover. And these chemicals are
poisonous to cats, dogs, birds and curious children.
Biological control provides an attractive alternative to
traditional control practices. Nematodes possess exceptional
potential as biocontrol agents for pest slugs.
In Europe, a product as been successfully developed from
Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita, that is effective against a wide
variety of pest slug and snail species and it targets only slugs
and snails.
It would be a perfect solution for introduction into the US but
there are no published records of P. hermaphrodita occurrence in
the US. Thus, regulatory issues prohibit it's introduction and
marketing in the US.
Slugs do play a positive role in the environment. Because slugs
are also scavengers eating decaying vegetation, animal feces, and
carrion they help in breaking down decomposing materials thus
helping to release nutrients back into the soil.
Slugs are night feeders so night traps and beer traps are the
best ways to catch and trap them. But there are many other
methods proven successful. One includes a very common, but not
well known, ingredient.
For more information:
http://www.apluswriting.net/garden/slugs.htm
Copyright: 2005 Marilyn Pokorney
Marilyn Pokorney
Freelance writer of science, nature, animals and the environment.
Also loves crafts, gardening, and reading.
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