Pre-seeding management
Burning
Burning prior to seeding, is one of the most effective methods for pre-breeding snail control and provides some slug control. The burning itself kills snails but does not kill slugs. The lack of food and shelter following a burn makes it more likely that slugs will move elsewhere.
Before deciding to burn, soil type and weather conditions need to be taken into consideration. Also, summer weeds should be desiccated and browned off. Rocks also provide hiding places and these, if possible, should be turned by cabling or fire harrowing just prior to burning.
It is important to ensure that an even burn is applied across the paddock, as unburnt patches will provide habitats (refuges) especially for snails. An even burn causes 80-100% kill, patchy burn 50-80% kill. Burning on a warm day with little wind in a paddock that has a reasonable fuel load should achieve good control, can be less effective on small pointed snails if rocks are not turned.
When snail populations are large, a strategic burn every three or four years will assist in controlling snail numbers.
Grazing
Grazing animals will knock snails from stubble and may also trample them. Grazing will also decrease the stubble load into a paddock about to be seeded. Decreasing stubble ground cover will decrease refuges for slugs and snails.
Tillage
The most effective form of tillage to reduce numbers of snails and slugs is wide points or full-cut discs that are used in conventional tillage methods. Ploughing the soil to a depth of 5cm or more will bury surface snails and slugs. Burying snails, especially small pointed snails, can reduce surface numbers of snails by around 40-60%.
Conventional tillage may have limited impact on black keeled slugs. Tillage will disrupt burrows made by these slugs and may cause some mortality. However, it is unlikely that tillage alone will decrease the number of black keeled slugs sufficiently to protect crops.
If tillage coincides with egg laying by slugs and snails, it may expose buried eggs to the environment. This may cause eggs to dry out and die, thereby decreasing slug and snail populations.
Cultivation of the soil does bury surface trash, disturbing potential shelters for slugs and snails. Ploughing trash residues after harvest has been found to remove over-summering habitat for slugs and snails.