Naked slugs are a type of amphibious molluscs that usually live in garden plots in summer and in cellars and vegetable stores in winter. The fight against slugs must be carried out constantly, because, having bred, these mollusks can destroy the entire crop.
A harmless, not very pleasant, even at first glance, mollusk, similar to a snail that has lost its shell, slowly and very gently covers the plant with a dense layer of thick mucus, rips off tissues, making the fruit completely unusable. In Russia, reticulated slugs are especially common. Fighting them is simply necessary: mollusks covered with mesh skin destroy root crops stored in cellars, manage to eat not only cabbage leaves, but even get to the head of cabbage. And this mollusk is not the only pest. There are also gourd varieties that destroy melons and watermelons, smooth, winter-eating, yellow slugs. The fight against them is especially difficult: huge, more than 10 cm individuals, devouring flowers, vegetables and everything else that is in the cellar, have good resistance to adverse effects. In greenhouses and cellars of Russia you can also findthick, clumsy, inactive, but well-camouflaged European mollusk. He can live in one place for years. Only the cold can drive it away. There are other slugs too. Fighting them involves the use of several methods. The experience of combating these pests shows that it is best to use not one method, but a set of preventive and "warlike" measures at the same time. Let's take a look at some of them.
Slugs: control and precautions
- Slugs attack in early spring. Gluttonous mollusks are happy to eat everything that has been left in the garden since autumn. Therefore, wanting to get rid of uninvited eaters, you need to carefully clean the garden (garden) even in the winter. Plant remains are not only food for slugs, but also their place of residence: it is easy to hide there from adverse weather.
- Slugs love wet places, so in areas with very high humidity it is advisable to dig grooves and fill them with dry sand.
- The beds can be fenced with plastic (for example, rings of "one and a half"), digging it into the ground. Are slugs afraid of plastic? The fight against them shows that the mollusks cannot overcome it. It is advisable to plant seedlings as early as possible, before the spring invasion of slugs. Well-rooted plants are calmer and more resistant to pest attack.
- You can treat the area with herbicides. Suitable funds "Hurricane", "Glyphos", etc. However, they must be used strictly according to the instructions and within the specified time: these substances are dangerous.
Metaldehyde: a proven way
More than a hundred years have passed since biologists, through many experiments, found out that the best substance that kills slugs is metaldehyde. Once in the soil, blue granules decompose, forming carbon dioxide and water. With their color, they scare away birds: they do not peck them. For worms and other representatives of the fauna, the granules are safe, but the slugs crawling over them get severe burns and die. On the basis of metaldehyde, many preparations have been created today that perfectly protect the site from slugs. It is better to cultivate the soil at sunset, when pests crawl out and begin to destroy plants.
