Even the hostas — which are royal favorites and abound throughout the grounds — show only minor evidence of slug damage.
Matt Crawford says last year alone his farm lost between $40,000 to $60,000 from slug damage.
First, three days after slug introduction we counted all leaves growing in the herbivory mesocosms with clear signs of slug damage (lesions).
We'd not seen each other for a couple of weeks so it was good to talk and catch up as we tidied up the slug damage and tempered the kale leaves threatening to smother a rows of seedlings growing in their lee.
We used Pearson correlations to test the relationship between plant nutrient concentrations and slug damage.
Our results show a contradictory impact of earthworms on slug damage after three and six days of exposure.
Slug damage to the cabbage crop can represent the largest proportion (40%) of the total reported damage.
Second, we assessed slug herbivory when harvesting the plants by counting the number of leaves per plant species with slug damage.
Slugs damaged 60% less leaves when earthworms were present, regardless of the species composition of the plant communities.
Slugs were her nemesis, and she happily paid local boys to capture toads for slug annihilation.
