New Scientist article on snails

Supercell

Anyone with a subscription to New Scientist?, saw the teaser below on http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329770.600-snail-trail-how-to-expel-the-gardeners-biggest-enemy.html

Snail trail: How to expel the gardener's biggest enemy

10 July 2014 by Stephanie Pain
Magazine issue 2977. Subscribe and save
Pictures of spreads from New Scientist magazine
Nail varnish, correction fluid and disco lights have revealed the impressive homing instincts of garden snails, as well as the best ways to get rid of them

AFTER 15 years of neglect, David Dunstan decided to give his garden a makeover. Once he had finished clearing and digging, he splashed out on 120 new plants, from cottage-garden favourites like lupins and lavenders to showy hostas with their luxuriant foliage. With the plants dug in and watered, the solid-state-physicist from Queen Mary, University of London put his feet up and waited for nature to do its stuff.

It did – but not in the way Dunstan had anticipated. Within days the prized hostas had been reduced to outlines on the soil. The lupins were hardly recognisable. Wherever Dunstan looked, he saw tender young plants ravaged by the rasping tongues of snails.

What to do? Advice came thick and fast. Crush ...

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I'd love to know what the conclusion was!! If anyone has read it?

evolving_doors

Supercell wrote: »

Anyone with a subscription to New Scientist?, saw the teaser below on http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329770.600-snail-trail-how-to-expel-the-gardeners-biggest-enemy.html



I'd love to know what the conclusion was!! If anyone has read it?

Being a scientist he probably went and tried out all the old reliables.. Beer traps, nematodes, throwing into neighbours garden, chopping with shovel. Then tried to ascribe some scientific rigour to this small scale ' experiment' by mentioning long words.
Then conclude that...
Nematodes : good but expensive
Throwing into neighbours garden : good but you need to throw at least 50ft
Beer Traps: Work best (but he probably hadn't realised snails come from miles around cos the pissup is on in his garden!)..

Thats my usual experience of today's scientific articles but id like to be surprised...anyone have a link to full article?

Edit: Just google his name with the word ' snail' after it.

interesting enough method but really needs to do it on a bigger scale for any validity though, where they chucked the snails though is questionable..of course if he chucks them on a wasteland then they ARE going to come back to his yummy veg garden. He should have done the experiment within an estate of gardens..(with everyone throwing snails into each other's gardens .... now that would require some SERIOUS research and modelling.

FullblownRose

Maybe putting the snails on your face would be an alternative. Snail slime is one of the 'hot' new ingredientsa in anti-aging face care! Or you could cook and eat them :O

Beer works best of all, though. Salt seems slightly more cruel.

gozunda

Supercell wrote: »

Anyone with a subscription to New Scientist?, saw the teaser below on http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329770.600-snail-trail-how-to-expel-the-gardeners-biggest-enemy.html



I'd love to know what the conclusion was!! If anyone has read it?

He got some ducks - natures slug killers