QuestionI see. Well I guess I do have another question now. Can you tell me where to purchase the Firefly predatory larva? How much are they?
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What about Decolllete snails? Would htey be a good way to get rid of slugs? You are not listing those.
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Does this include snails?
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i was going thru the garage and came upon a few things i know you would disapprove of and one is slug bait. I just dont' want to get rid of it if there's no other way to get rid of them. We have thousands of slugs. I used to try picking them off but it's really gross. beer cans are just not any good, the ones you have to pu in the ground, and the "organic" ones from some of the internet places are too expensive. I don't use a lot of "chemicals"but i do need this slug bait unless you haev a better way. remember - i have seen thousands of slugs in august and they are out of control.
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Gastropods - snugs and snails to us - have a field day in our gardens, eat our vegetables in the dark of night, leave their slimy calling cards for us to find the next morning. I have tried the "recommended" cures for these beasts, too. And I don't blame you for wanting to throw slug bait around for them.
That slime - glycoproteins made of sugar and protein - is supposed to make them unappetizing for anyone who would consider eating them. Works for me.
A single slug will lay up to 200 eggs as much as 6 times in a season, right beneath the soil surface. Once there, those little oval eggs can stay and wait for YEARS for just the right weather conditions before they hatch. It takes 6 months for a slug to grow up and begin regenerating. Their diet includes a lot of things that make them useful: Fungi, Lichens, Decomposing Food, mainly underground. There are lots of natural predators. As long as you don't use chemicals.
Given how good it is to have them in your garden, why not ring around the chosen plants or beds with copper (which reations with the slime to shock the slug) or diatomaceous earth (which must be renewed every time it rains, even just a little). The current issue (April) of the Rodale periodical Organic Gardening contains a short feature "Slug Stoppers" and lists "Sluggo", pellets made of Iron Phosphate and other ingredients toxic to Slugs.
Geese and Garter Snakes also love to eat Slugs. If you can manage to keep Garter Snakes in your own property line, I think we're on to something.
Otherwise, pick up a good supply of Sluggo for the spring and plan to ban Slugs from the vegetable and perennials area this year mercilessly. Good luck.
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Slugs are part of the same Family as Snails: GASTROPODS, Order Mollusca.
The only important difference between them is that Snails have that Shell to protect them, made of Calcium. Some Snails can live in that shell for FOUR YEARS.
They're both Nocturnal; they secrete that slimy stuff to wriggle down the sidewalk and over your garden to the vegetables; and most can eat Cellulose, the tough part of those green vegetables and garden perennials.
They are caviar to Lizards, some Frogs, Garden Snakes, Spiders, Birds (especially geese and chickens), and certain predatory Nematodes.
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Decollete Snails were found to absolutely devour small garden snails and slugs. Trouble is, when all the other gastropods are gone, these ones may start eating your plants, too. And they may not wait for the other slugs and snails to be gone.
Coffee grounds are on some of the newer lists of Snail Barriers for the garden. I have tried this and I can tell you that coffee grounds around a sprouting plant will repel every slug that gets near it. If you sprinkle it around Tomato plants, however, the Tomato will taste like Coffee. By the time you find this out, it's too late to do anything about it.
My favorite new Snail/Slug weapon remains Firefly Larvae. These can be purchased on the internet and I am hoping they will prove to be a great idea. I am not crazy about the idea of the Decollette snails because we don't really know what makes them tick yet. Let someone do the final experiments and sign off on them before you test drive them yourself. Once you release them in your garden, all bets are off, mister.
AnswerYou'll find them, usually at night, right in your garden for starters. What do they look like? See the illustrations on the niv. of Alberta's Entomology Collection website(http://www.museums.ualberta.ca/dig/search/ent/searching_species_details.php?c=8&) which also describes their diet ("In the first three instars, multiple larvae may feed on a single snail, while later instars become solitary predators. The protractible head of P. borealis allows it to reach into narrow portions of a snail's shell, and the mandibles have an internal channel that is used to inject digestive fluids into the prey"). (FYI: "instar" is a stage of an insect between molting.) Right now, fireflies are hibernating, activity which EC scientists says takes place "on a tree trunk some distance from the ground, and often on the southern exposure in the path of winter sunlight", upside down. In North America, Photinus, Photuris and Pyractomena are the most common fireflies. Photinus pyralis is most common east of the Rocky Mountains and in the Southeast. Pyractomena is found around lakes and rivers.
EC also describes how to raise these bugs: "Some people have also been able to rear Photuris larvae on kibbles of moist dog food. Pyractomena generally have been observed to eat aquatic snails. When provided with food and soil Photuris and Photinus larvae will pupate in the spring or early summer, building little chambers or igloos, then emerging as adult fireflies." Given that these are nocturnal, it makes sense that they would be dining on night-crawling snails and slugs. Any bird, spider, mouse, snake or bat that might want to have Fireflies for dinner will find that the chemicals that make these insects glow in the dark also make them poisonous.
Firefly Expert Terry Lynch works as a consultant on firefly breeding projects (http://www.byteland.org/naturalist/firefly_faq.html). He can recommend ways to purchase -- even better, to breed -- these bugs for your own backyard Integrated Pest Management work. Unlike other Ladybugs and other beneficials, it is apparently much riskier to "import" a non-native firefly species from a different community; this kind of commerce is discouraged. If you are interested in a firefly breeding program, please let me know and I'll get more information about that.
Final trivia footnote: The firefly is the Official Insect in the state of Pennsylvania.
