Throw snails away 20m to clean your garden

(A new study published on May 16, 2014 in Scripta Physica magazine) uses statistical models to prove that simply by killing the snails that you discover. Seeing in your garden will bring very little effect if you want them to completely disappear from your garden.

According to gardeners, the study must come back to the limit of damage, when their results show that snails are part of larger snails that live in gardens, they crawl and crawl. Go like they want to use an instinct to return to the nest.

Contrary to killing a snail, throwing it flying through the wall is quite effective , and research results show that if the snail is thrown out of the garden with a distance of 20m or more, the ability to find the road Back to its nest at your garden almost zero.

The co-author of the study, Professor David Dunstan, from Queen Mary's School of Physics and Astronomy said: 'We have shown that the number of regular or extraordinary snails visiting a garden is large. far more than the actual snails that are present at all times in a garden . " Thus, gardeners cannot figure out how to remove snails from their gardens.

In order to achieve such a feat the gardener will have to free the entire snail neighborhood of the snails in the garden, which will be a very time-consuming process.'Gardeners should figure out how to reduce the damage caused by snails, but the results of our research show that it is possible to quickly achieve the goal of completely removing snails from the garden by The very simple way is to move them to a distance of more than 20m. '

'A recent survey by the Royal Horticultural Society Royal Horticultural Society shows that one in five UK gardeners threw snails into the gardens of their neighbors. While our research shows that this is more beneficial than killing snails, we believe the gardening community will benefit from moving snails to a wasteland rather than throwing a burden. to their neighbors'.

In 2010, co-author of research Dr. Dave Hodgson, from the University of Exeter, along with amateur scientist Ruth Brooks, found that snails have an instinct to find their nests.

Professor Dunstan's research began in 2001 when a garden in a small refurbished suburb. About 120 trees were planted in early summer, and after a few days, serious damage was caused by snails.

Better than killing snails, owners have systematically removed snails for six months. Each snail was found to have a marked shell and was thrown 5 meters away from the garden wall into a wasteland. All snails crawl back to the garden and are marked on the shell wherever they are found.

A total of 416 snails were marked and thrown through the wall 1385 times during this study.

After collecting the results, Professor Dunstan collaborated with Dr. Hodgson to analyze the data from his 2001 experiment, using computer simulations to see if the actual results could be replicated. or not. In the computer model, each snail is created as an object with different characteristics and behaviors and is allowed to "do its own work".

Researchers can interfere with computer models at certain times and change different parameters. They discovered that they could only replicate the actual results if snails were given an instinct to find their way back to the nest.

As for the next phase of the study, co-author Dr. Dave Hodgson said: 'The snails themselves reveal themselves as a rich, pliable and mysterious creature model. Our plan is to develop studies of snail behavior as an interesting teaching practice for budding talented scientists of all ages. '