A good friend is a farmer and trying to make a gradual transition to organic style agriculture. He is asking me how to deal with snails, specifically african land snails. To which i know of no effective organic solution.
That said snail killers that are less poisonous to “higher” animals are available but i cannot find them here at my local shops or ag extensions…so curious if its even available here…?
We are avoiding the following chemical, which is so far all ive seen other than bitter tea oil which is not effective on scale.
2,4,6,8-tetramethyl-1,3,5,7-tetraoxacyclo-octane
Aka. 聚乙醛/Metaldehyde
Anyone with advice on where to find it within taiwan would be greatly appreciated.
Ps i know i can find the raw materials in chemical shops and formulate my own. I already have done it as a trial run for some farmers but id rather not do it and be involved. Purchasing registered material is what we are all after
Those things are a nightmare, but I doubt you’ll be able to eradicate them with molluscicides of any type. You’re sure to miss a few eggs and the colony will just re-establish itself in a year or two.
Exactly what is he growing? Would it be possible to shut down all or most of it for a couple of years and just free-range some ducks and/or pigs? They will most likely wipe out all the snails (especially if you train them to eat them) and you can maintain a rotating colony of them after plant re-establishment to pick off any stragglers.
I have noticed, incidentally, that those snails prefer decaying vegetation over the live stuff. If you maintain enough mulch and compost you may find they remain there; give the animals access to those areas and that might keep them under control.
If you have to use the chemical, the farm stores will usually have all sorts of toxic stuff hidden under the counter.
Its a vegetable crop rotation. Although salt works on contact it isnt a feasible deterent to them. If one were to uae enough salt to scare them off the crops would be greatly harmed!
Taiwan is way too small a land mass and way too high density population, so shutting down a farm here like that is not a reasonable solution. Neighbouring areas will most certainly bring in snails within months without question. Ive done this before. Also birds are unable to kill larger snails. Beaks are not string enough. The warefar should be micro or feed based. Im researching some thungs but so far are not so effective, especially on big snails.
The fight is real. I just had an acre of seedlings munched this month myself.
Although i agree this species does tend to eat rotting stuff (or corpses, poo, concrete etc) it also aids in their breeding. Mulches, be it organic material or plastic, increases snail proliferation many fold. Its a hard thing to manage. We seem to only be able to control weeds OR snails, never both. Intensive organic operations tend to make great opportinities for molluscs.
As much as i dont like killing things, i think with snails a food that kills them (bait) might be the only option. Yeast traps work ok but again there is a serious logistics issue when farm size increases.
Im breeding parasites and some insects now to try (fire flies dont work despite what people say) but thats years away from any kind of conclusion on scale. Food based bait seems the only short term option at hand now, and iron phosphate seems the safest commercially available one.
Please correct me if im wrong.
The toxic under the counter stuff for snails is easily bought and available worldwide. But it harms other wildlife a lot and also pets. As first post the easy way out is: 聚乙醛/Metaldehyde. Which harms many mammals amongst others. This stuff is thrown around like glittery paper on a gods birthday in front of a temple. There are other options but i cannot find them here
My point exactly. Nature always has the last laugh in these situations; sometimes the best way to win is not to play, hence my suggestion to just forget about the vegetable rotation for a while (or possibly forever) and create a completely different habitat. If you live in a location infested by snails, growing vegetables is always going to be a losing proposition.
Indeed, but the point would be to have the animals turn over their breeding areas at regular intervals. This is effective for slug control in the UK, but I realise that may not translate well to giant snails in Taiwan, especially if you don’t have adequate land area for pigs (which absolutely do eat snails, as long as you introduce them as food when they’re young).
Have you considered electric fencing? This would require an unconventional layout and a lot of attention to keeping low-strung wires free of weeds (and clear of the soil), but it ought to work. Polywire is very cheap so you could make quite an extensive mesh.
A less sophisticated possibility is metallic tape. You want a strip of copper and aluminium, run next to each other. The snail will get a slight jolt as it rolls over them. These are available from electronics shops, but they’d be quite expensive in quantity.
My personal feeling is that organic operations are best done with a mixture of perennials (which are a lot less vulnerable to common pests) and animals. Vegetable-growing should be confined to an intensive area that can be managed by hand - say, a few hundred square meters.
Giving up vegetables is never a viable option. Imagine you go to the supermarket and no “vegetable” is available. By vegetable this also includes grains. Or essentially any low growing plant that is affected by snails.
Though one point you make is worth elaborating. Wire mesh. Its not effective for many reasons, here at least, but there is a point in mentioning land ownership and infrastructure in prevention. If a person owns their land and will invest, a ditch (moat), around the perimeter is easy and effective. Ive done it once in the past and was amazingly effective (with constant intensive snail genocide inside the castle walls). But the idea is to help the average farmer become less toxic. Unfortunately buying land isnt in most peoples realm of liklihood. Nor is expensive investment in short term rental land. So whats plan b?
Youre from the UK, im from canada. We bith have winter. The pest and weed control issue is a much different ballgame than back home. As is the pollution/contamination from agriculture.
I wasn’t suggesting he give up vegetables, merely that he should consider other options. Look at things from the snail’s point of view: as far as the snail is concerned, somebody has kindly provided a buffet. That’s not the snail’s fault.
The basic issue here is that attempting to adapt conventional agriculture to organic simply by using different chemicals (or none at all) while leaving all of the other procedures unchanged is unlikely to work. Organic (I prefer the phrase ‘natural farming’) is a completely different methodology.
My farm is in the Philippines and I have a lot more land to play with and higher average temperatures, but similar problems. I’ve just started up an aquaponics system for annual veg, precisely because open-field methods just don’t work. There’s always something digging them up, or eating them. The fact is, you can grow as many veg in 10m2 of an aquaponics vat as you can in 100m2 on open farmland. I’ve developed a similar system which uses liquid compost applied to flood-and-drain vats filled with wood and sand (organic hydroponics, basically). Works very well. Most of the farm area is now committed to trees and shrubs with multiple functions: fruit, compost, water control, etc. I’m pretty sure this is doable in Taiwan; in fact I started off with a similar project on 200m2 in YangMingShan.
I would say the aim is not to help the average farmer become less toxic but to help him make money in such a way that the toxins become unnecessary. Inevitably that will involve growing different things, in fundamentally different ways. Taiwanese people seem quite open to new things in the realm of food; for example, if you’re down South (this wouldn’t work in the North) he could try growing moringa, which is tasty, easy to grow, and should fetch a high price purely for its novelty value. Katuk (sauropus androgynus) is overdue for a comeback too, I reckon. Just thinking out loud here.
I agree with everything you say, but do slightly disagree/question the methods you use on a large scale in the mindset here. So lets discuss because you and me seem to have similar styles and thinking in terms of agriculture.
So the idea of changing crops. Yes this is wise and works as a whole, but not on an individual farm basis. Right or wrong, taiwan is not organized enough to realize that dream of collective benefit. We are working in our area on that but its a totally different conversation as to this snail issue.
So for examples sake lets say the goal is to grow low growing vegetation for consumption.
The crops will obviously rotate out, they must match the soil, climate, season etc. Also the consumer wants what he she wants. Again another conversation about changing purchase ideology. Not the point here as there are arguments on all sides whether a potato should be grown here, imported or just eaten seasonally.
So lets assume we want a given ceop year round. Lets assume the system is figured out fairly well in all aspects except snails (which ive done already over many years). Most pests are manageable with various methods. Weed control, nutrition, rotations etc are all good and working smoothly. Snails are one of the few pests i have yet to figure out an answer to for large scale production, at least without spending a lot of money. And i have yet to see any perma guru, organic expert ever have an answer for. Probably because most havent farmed in the teopics with an amazingly explosive african land snail problem. Ive farmed in other countries and this problem isnt a thing. Here you can literally have a 100% crop loss in a week. No joke. Just the snails.
We did an experimental farm a while back that works exceptionally well as we literally surrounded the land with a water filled ditch and killed everything inside. Over time the problem just goes away. Greenhouses are useful too. But expensive, we have typhoons and it doesnt fit great with avoiding plastic and excessive materials as they need to be re sheeted every 5ish years depending on location.
The big issue in taiwan is rental land. this isnt feasible for most people as land is too small and landlords are incredibly unreliable! Government land has restrictions up the ass on building and is incredibly hard for many people to rent. So lets assume most farmers cannot own land (insanely expensive now) and must use rental land. they wont be spen ding lots of cash modifying as they likely cant keep growing for long. I know contracts can be sig ed 10, 20 years…but ya, become succesful amd see what your average taiwanese landlord does. Sometimes reality isnt hinestly represented in agriculture publications. Either way, no farmer is investing that much in a rental farm for this exact reason (fear of losing it).
I like aquaponics as well. But its an expensive setup. We have used it in that farm as well with great success. But one needs some funds to play. Ideally farms in the flatlands where there are no government digging restrictions can have ponds dug. Most landlords will not allow it but some will. Otherwise plastic systems or raised lined ponds which also work but takes a lot to invest as well. That and most older farmers have a technical hurdle as they arent incredibly smart. But i agree with what you will say that ignorance is no excuse. Aquaponics mostly gets rid of the snail problem. And we are breeding leeches for the aquatic snail problem so should be good. But its not a feasible fix in the short term at all.
Not impossible but a future goal.
In the beginning for traditional fields almost every aspect is more or less figured out for organic and more or less natural farming (in taiwan that term is almost cult like so i dont use it, the term, here. but abroad i like the definition).
So on a 10 acre field where you are not allowed to build, what would your suggestion be to kill snails or avoid them? Iron is cheap and easy and relatively safe. Things like fire flies are not effective, ducks and chickens are useless as well for the big african species. Im keeping a few different beetle species but its always the same end: big ones are not hunter. Care needs to be given to crop damage as well, which makes the birds even worse.
One can change crops but thats not feasible for the market. That is a consumer education campaign that is always ongoing. Growing things drier with no soil protection works but then soil degredation and erosion takes place and in my opinion adding iron bait is far more environmentally friendly than destroying the topsoil layer everywhere.
So curious if not a bait to kill this massively invasive pest, then what?
As an aside my own plots are all organic, sustainable and natural with the exception of plastic used in irrigation and the like. So im not against the idea, but as a wholesaler and exporter im not naive about the issues of feeding people on acale. And the AG world is already pretty at an emergency state. We even had a farm briefly in your countey as a test for them. Near Cebu. But it was a very temporary thing.
Another ps. Moringa grows here already. I have lots growing, trees can be bought everywhere. Taiwanese tend to use trunks for soup broth. Take off the bark and boil, makes an excellent chicken soup! The new growth is accepted but i find many arent hot on it yet. We sell it but its not popular. They call it spicy wood in chinese, la mu
The way I see it, the job of a farmer is not to pander to whatever the bulk buyers demand, but to find those market segments which (a) will make him the maximum amount of money for the least amount of effort and (b) are consistent with the resources available to him.
Consumers want lots of things. You’re focusing on a target that’s already covered by many other suppliers. Because the market is broad, you’ll be subjected to intense price competition.
It’s a dangerous assumption, because you will inevitably place yourself in the same situation as the conventional farmer: you are fundamentally at war with nature. The conventional farmer accepts this and goes full-on nuclear. His explicit aim is to grind nature’s face in the dust, so that he can achieve what he wants to achieve, and damn the consequences.
The alternative view is this: rather that set up floodgates behind which the vast forces of nature are held back, allow those forces to flow through your fingers in the directions that you prefer. You cannot divert those forces outright, but you can tweak and rebalance.
I have golden apple snails. If I were growing rice (like everyone else) they’d devastate my crop without molluscicides. They are massively invasive and have no predators. The solution, as far as I’m concerned, is obvious: don’t grow rice. It’s one of the most useless agricultural commodities I can think of in any case, and has very low return on investment, so it’s an easy decision.
The snails sit there in little pools of water doing whatever snails do. They don’t bother me at all. In fact I put some of them in my aquaponics pond, where they are extremely efficient at converting trash into plant food. They appear not to bother the fish, but I do remove their eggs if I see them.
I also have skunks, which dig for earthworms and uproot plants. Little buggers they are, because they seem to find the most earthworms precisely where the plants are growing. However, good crop layout and electric fencing sorts this out.
Once you’ve accepted killing (without purpose) as a potential option, the whole thing escalates into all-out war. I find that once you take this option off the table, it forces you to get creative.
I’m not a hemp-sandal vegan. I eat meat and I understand the role of death in nature. However I am uncomfortable with the idea of killing in order that some specific human target can be achieved.
I totally get this. I have to say, having had a little experience here, I would not want to attempt commercial farming in Taiwan. Too many legal and commercial headaches. The numbers just don’t work out. I have land in the UK and in the Philippines because those markets are full of potential with (relatively) low barriers to entry. Taiwan … not so much.
This is a problem nearly everywhere on the planet. The locals used to drive me mad; they’d come and lean on my wall and sit there sniggering about the stupid foreigner doing everything wrong. Sometimes they’d come and chop down my trees because farms shouldn’t have trees on them. Eventually the landlord terminated my lease because I was an embarrassment. I get something similar in the Philippines. The UK, not so much.
If chemical control is your only option then I agree that iron phosphate is the way to go.
Me personally, I’d attempt to intensify the vegetable production so that (a) it’s easy to physically exclude the snails and (b) I can use the rest of the land for something else. 10 acres (4 hectares) is a lot. No idea what the lease payments are, but you should gross about NT$5m/year from an all-natural system on that area, with a judicious balance of crops and animals. This is purely theoretical, but I’d perhaps go with something like this:
1.5ha heritage-breed pigs on a rotating-paddock system beneath tree/shrub cover. The trees would be chosen to provide green forage and mast for the pigs to harvest for themselves. Sell the pork direct to high-end restaurants. Rough guess, that would be 4000kg pork (hanging weight) per year, representing gross income around NT$1-$1.5m/year with a direct-marketing approach. Quick-yield annuals would follow the pig rotation for additional income, and root vegetables (sweet potatoes) would follow those for pigfeed.
1.5ha for perennials, eg., fruit for human consumption. Waste fruit can go to the pigs. You could potentially free-range ducks beneath the trees, but this would require some investment in fencing and housing.
0.5ha for shrubby annuals (chili peppers or okra, say), with a focus on unusual varieties. These should be less prone to snail attack, and/or easier to protect.
0.5ha for green-vegetable production, with maximum possible intensification.
This is the sort of structure I’m working towards (except I have only 2ha).
What happened to it? I can take a good guess, but I’m curious to hear the story
ewww. I thought the wood was toxic? I was thinking of the leaves, flowers, and pods.
I’m not big on the leaves personally, but they’re a hugely profitable product for export … as is moringa-seed oil, which is going to be my main focus this year now that my trees are yielding heavily. The pods are very tasty - have you tried them?
Have you checked any of the chemical stores? You may need to ask for it as they don’t always have it on the shelf. They tend to keep the really toxic stuff in the back.
Great post, will answer when have more time. But briefly, yes rotating with different crops is the way to doit. We already do and the system is pretty much all fine and dandy. The issue is afeican land snails. Aquatic snails we can jse in rice fields as a natural herbicide. They arent a big issue. Other land snails areny so bad either. Issue is african land snails specifically on low groqing vegetables, which mist be grown. Plabting sifferent things togeyher and all that doesny help the snail problem…so specifically what can be done with this species of snail that is actually feasible. Hand picking is not possible for many reasons, trust that.
So far i have seen a good answer for large scale farming. Note large scale does not by proxy mean mono culture. As mention its all setup quite effectively and ru s smoothly, except the snail species.
The way I see it, the job of a farmer is not to pander to whatever the bulk buyers demand, but to find those market segments which (a) will make him the maximum amount of money for the least amount of effort and (b) are consistent with the resources available to him.
Consumers want lots of things. You’re focusing on a target that’s already covered by many other suppliers. Because the market is broad, you’ll be subjected to intense price competition.
It’s a dangerous assumption, because you will inevitably place yourself in the same situation as the conventional farmer: you are fundamentally at war with nature. The conventional farmer accepts this and goes full-on nuclear. His explicit aim is to grind nature’s face in the dust, so that he can achieve what he wants to achieve, and damn the consequences.
The alternative view is this: rather that set up floodgates behind which the vast forces of nature are held back, allow those forces to flow through your fingers in the directions that you prefer. You cannot divert those forces outright, but you can tweak and rebalance.[/quote]
Yes, very right. And those are good points. I dont disagree and thats what we do already. That all said the consumer really does in a big way control the product. I have this deep discussion a lot about buying chinese made products even though we dont support chinas way of doing things. Typical answer is: there is no other option. Typical solution is: that is bullshit. The consumer very much controls the market. The market tries to influence the consumer, absolutely, no doubt! But in the end if an item doesnt sell, production stops.
So with that reality there are compromises. Keeping with the invasive snail epidemic problem as the point of example in discussion…if i, or any farmer, is going to pay people to remove snails on an effective enough scale the cost of any given vegetable will likely be 3 fold. tree crops, certain species more or less damage. it really depends, fact is there are millions per acre and they bury underground. Therein lies the issue of no market anymore despite the product being “done right” (due to increased price). So there lies the next problem of now farmers need to be story tellers (marketing) to sell their story to the populace so they understand. Its a good venture but is not feasible to not only source and manufacture but market and teach people. So this requires a partnership, coop or some such thing where people help each other. We are on that already so it should be fine on all these fronts. In the meantime crops are disappearing through a molluscs’ digestive tract making the whole operation fail. basically. look at common organic shops here in Taiwan. Ginger powered costs $400nt at Leezen. the person making it receives $100nt. The person selling not only grows the product, thye also have to do or pay to harvest it, wash it, cut it, dry it, powder it then pay for packaging, setup a company, get food standard satisfied, food seeling ID, pay for GS1 (bar code, make labels, buy jars/bags, then also fill/seal or pay soemone to do so etc etc. for 100nt, while retail outlets make 300 nt for simply paying rent to have a shop and stock it on their shelves.
this is a huge problem, but consumers are generally too lazy and selfish to learn or care about this issue, so its really the farmers problem. again, we are working on that as best we can, and with the internet things get easier. but retail type setups is a big problem and thus farmers have little to no room for error. so they can either streamline or reinvent. we are doing both. the snail problem falls into the streamline region.
A fun fact. if one can control soil level/consistency and also contorl water level, apple snails do very little damage to rice as they are too heavy to climb above water to eat the rice tops. This is slightly more labor intensive but extremely effective. we lived in japan learning some organic ways they use there ans this was my take home point from that trip. the water is maintained based on the rice height as to not allow snails climbing the blades. the snails instead eat the weeds still at soil level. as the plants grow, so can the water level. it was a quite good system we saw. we re now also breeding some biological pest control species for after to help improve snail breeding, they will be ready hopefully in 2 years.
apple snails are also a foreign invasive species which disrupts the natural balance, so when we try to create a natural balance but have terminators or the borg come in and wreak havoc on the crops, its not a natural balance. farmers get stuck between these 2 issues because people are too ignorant to realize the issue. if the farmer can create a naturally harmonious environments its all good. enter land snails, apple, snails, Norwegian rats, morning glory, nematodes, etc etc. its not a fair fight. so one must create balance, and with super strong invasive species how can we do that without harming our already setup natural system. thats the main issue.
this is why bigger animals, say mammals and birds like skunks, pigs, chickens and ducks are not super efficient. they can work as a runt through crop rotation, but in harmony WITH plant crops. its very well known the plants rhizosphere is filled with life, it not only protects moisture loss but has a lot of nutrient migration and life living withing it. skunks and such are not stupid, they wont dig through a pile of sand and rocks to find nothing, much like the farmer also already knows (if they really are intimate with their land). So they will basically fuck up your crops unless you are growing fairly strong plants, trees, shrubs, perennials etc. so this is why we say those crops are not an issue, as the problems are relatively easily solved, but tender vegetable crops are the topic of discussion as all conventional treatments for snails are eitehr destructive animals or toxic chemicals. we need an option C.
electric fencing isnt an option for most pests. including snails. copper wire is semi effective but it corrodes over time and isnt effective. and frankly if we think environmental footprint and labor costs. laying out 100s of kg of copper wire plus labor costs and food/gas etc for said labor it is WAY more devastating than simple iron phosphate stuck in some yeast material sprinkled over certain areas.
this is at least the direction im coming from. if im wrong PLEASE correct me as im only wanting to improve and streamline every step i do. If there is a better route, discussing it can only benefit everyone, win win
i respect that. im not a killing type person. im vegetarian for that exact reason. but i also try my best to not be too bias and be realistic. i dont harm native snail species, they are a minor issue. this invasive species really causes much harm. not just for crops but disease. i dont think much needs to be said about their damage and why they should be controlled. there is a lot of proof of that. and although it may be a human venture, its food. the alternative to not growing food is probably a bit more dire than killing a destructive species in a place it doesnt belong. i really get your angle, i am mostly like that, but in this case i just feel it is not in any way a realistic attitude. of course people could stop eating plant foods and switch to killing other stuff to eat…but that seems to me worse.
Yes i agree. but its my home and food security is about to become a real problem. so im in it for the long haul, win or lose.
yup. over the years i have developed a dont fuck with me face. and im a friggen master with my 22" machete. when they see a tired, sun burnt hairy guy in boxes cutting up trees they would just use a chainsaw on, they tend not to touch my plants. takes time and a delicate touch haha! I get along with my area so when i see them laughing, i go directly to them, weapon in hand, and talk to them and ask them to show me their farm and style. in about 5 sentences we respect each other. taiwan is great this way, but it takes some time to navigate each village, for sure. in the end, dont take shit from anyone, but always offer them your beer. wining solution in any field. more often than not we end up being friends, we work out their farms issues together and once they clean up their practices i even start helping them sell their harvest for a much better price. its win win as well. or we could just be quite and fester hate at those ignorant locals while they laugh at us ignorant foreigners. lose lose. its frustrating as all hell, i agree.
i suppose this is where comminucation is interupted when i seek advice on snails. smal scale or big scale is no different. the market is different. we do “small scale” intensive agriculture ona large scale. thats teh point, peopel need food and we have a lot of people. so we need to think LARGE scale. like really large. that doesnt mean its not segmented and rotated etc. but it must be big to be efficient use of tools, machines,labor etc. 10 is small still. its big for here for most peopel sstandards but its not that big at all. renting land in taiwan is cheap. private land is more, if you are a legal farmer renting government land is really cheap. like a few thousand nt a year per hectare…really barely enough to even right down as a cost. private land for actual farming should be about 2000-5000/fen/year (say 600usd/acre/year), and thats frankly expensive.
profit is insanely variable based on so many things, so im not going to comment, but ya, per hectare one could make 300k USD easily, or as little as 30k. depends on the person, crop, area, market and weather that year. i have enough money for myself, so i am in it for improving my home and connecting with people, not maximizing profits. helping them i am using profits as the engine force that drives them towards being less environmentally devastating.
you live there so you already know. lets just say no matter taiwans criminal corruption problem, its safe here. it isnt there…especially in the islands around Cebu…
ya they are already big business. now the world is realizing it. we grow a lot too, and will be marketing it locally next year. lots of good uses. here they use the trunks, but need to de bark them. the soup broth is really very good actually. i was shocked when a close friend brought some to cook after he learned i was growing it as a tender vegetable. there are massive trees all over taiwan, they just didnt realize and/or didnt like the taste. but the taste isnt horrible, i view it like a spicy green bean.
so ya, we are still left with this massive snail problem. more intensive vegetable production is great for weed control and many other pests such as nematodes, mites, insects etc. but for snails more intensive = more intensive breeding. those god damned things just breed more as they dont need to hide as much with the extra ground cover.
soooo…???
solutions for african land snails are: _________________?
Sorry for the tardy response. I’ve been in Elbonia for a while.
Did you try the iron phosphate? I imagine you could get it from a metalwork shop if you haven’t been able to find it packaged as a pesticide.
While contemplating my golden apple snails - which seem to spend most of their time making more snails - I can’t help thinking you’re missing a trick somewhere. The main problem with a pesticide is that the animal can do a considerable amount of damage before it dies: killing the animal might reduce the damage, but it doesn’t eliminate it.
From your previous posts, you seem to be big on microlivestock, and I suspect your academic knowledge of ecology is considerably broader and deeper than mine. The way I see it, if you have an animal that eats trash and reproduces prolifically, you could probably use that to turn a profit as long as you can confine them as livestock. This may well take some experimentation, but if you can come up with a viable method, they’ll be interviewing you for the Discovery Channel.
I’m just throwing out ideas here, but I assume you maintain compost heaps. If you lace these with agricultural lime the snails might find them doubly attractive. In other words: if you’re having trouble keeping them out of your crops, is it possible to get them into something else? You could combine this with some method to make the vegetables unattractive (“push-pull” pest management). For example can you intercrop alliums? AFAIK snails generally dislike like these. I wonder if there are any types of shredded wood that would irritate their soft underbellies if used as a mulch?
Simplistically, if you have a stable population of 100 snails, each consuming 20kg food per year and recycling their own corpses back into the compost, you’d have something equivalent to a worm farm chewing through 2 tonnes of trash a year. Five of those on a hectare and you’ve got your snails providing a good fraction of your fertility-input requirement.
This apparently isn’t a novel idea - I just googled the subject and apparently snails are used as composting organisms, and because they like eating trash tend not to venture out in search of vegetables.
I would suggest growing some plants specifically for snail food/compost. Since they have a high protein requirement, leucaena, indigofera, trichanthera and flemingia would seem like obvious choices. These would grow easily on degraded or otherwise useless bits of your land. I dunno, would they eat moringa leaves? A lot of animals don’t like them, but maybe snails aren’t so picky.
Incidentally, moringa trees fruiting very well at the moment. I’ve been stuffing my face with them. One of my favourite vegetables. Funnily enough, the natives won’t touch them; they’re deathly afraid of anything with vitamins in it.
I havent tried the iron yet as my family is visiting and we are out of town. I plan to when they leave this month though. As you say, i will just mix my own bait as i cant find it for sale in ready form.
I am certainly far from a professional but i am fairly well versed in the environment here. Apple snails are far far less of a problem. Mainly cause they only live in water and thus can be easily controlled. We are working on biopest conteol species for apple snails as well. But their threat isnt so bad.
It already is used as a food. In fact nearly all escargot in a can is african land snail, not the fancy french stuff. This is the reason we have them in taiwan, as an export agricultural product. They are still farmed and still get out thus the problem will never be solved. They are too tough and fast breeding anyway that the wild populations are here to stay indefinately.
if you’re having trouble keeping them out of your crops, is it possible to get them into something else[/quote]
Yes, ypure exactly right. Trapping, as far as i know, is the only organic way to kill them but its not ultra efficient. Yeast is the bait and they drown.
One could use it for some crops. I have a small wood chipper for said purpose but its more useful in weed control. The wood mulch creates a wonderful breeding ground for snails. But if chipped when dry the chips are sharper. Other issue, especially for woody stemmed species, is the wood will cause massive fungal groqth which can cause serious problems to the plants. So its good to leave a gopd space around stems and avoid fungal attack. In an orchard, as an example, wood mulch between the tree rows is great. But tree farms are insanely easy to manage compared to annual vegetable crops.
Things like cedar and cypress are good too but slow down crop growth and are thus neber sed. Also shavings of scented woods are a somewhat expensive product.
Unfortunately land snails dont eat leucaena, what a wonderful world that would be killing 2 birds with one stone. Mpringa not much either but it goes back to more tree like plants being less affected than lpw growing veggies. Growing rows of plants for insects etc, or weeds, greatly reduces snails initially, but they breed more and thus the farmer just shot himself in the foot for the future. These snails can live 5 or 6 years and have many clutches per year. Reaching sexual maturity in under 6 months. At least from the ones i have raised.
Heheya moringa is good. Not amazing taste wise but an amazing tree!
