{"id":7979,"date":"2025-07-14T13:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T12:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/?p=7979"},"modified":"2025-07-14T13:26:42","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T12:26:42","slug":"killing-arion-vulgaris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/killing-arion-vulgaris\/","title":{"rendered":"Killing Arion vulgaris"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The other day I had a chat with an AI \u2013\u00a0as one does these days \u2013\u00a0asking for suggestions on how to build a robotic platform to exterminate the slugs that are infesting our garden. It suggested electro-shocking as means of murder and either a stationary platform with an arm, or a mobile hexapod roamer. As a result I’m starting to look into computer vision and robotics solutions \u2013 here’s a similar Hackaday project<\/a> \u2013 to complement my own low tech extermination efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Tobacco<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is new: I’ve previously refrained from killing slugs – I couldn’t consolidate a “minimize pain” approach with killing slugs directly. I’ve gone as far as spreading iron phosphate pellets, reasoning that it gives them a sporting chance not to eat the stuff, and a painless death otherwise. Weak approach, I know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this year I planted 40-something tobacco plants which I’m hoping to turn into cigars, and even though I waited as long as I could before putting them in the ground, the fucking critters decimated them. I had hoped that the nicotine would keep the pests away \u2013 it seems to keep insects and deer at bay\u00a0\u2013\u00a0but one night I plucked over 150 slugs from just one group of tobacco plants. One hundred and fifty! <\/em>And that’s when I lost my patience with the slimy things and started going after them with a guillotine. But this is a losing proposition \u2013 the number of snails in the surrounding areas is so great that for evey one I decapitate, two more show up to take its place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So next year I’m going full defensive and put up an electric fence around all things I’d like to keep, as well as agressively pursue slugs. Be it with pellets or a robot with a death laser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Four
The four plants in the greenhouse have managed the best and some leafs are nearing 70cm.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Side note: I’m growing four kinds of tobacco. Two traditional Swedish types \u2013 Alida & Per-Pers \u2013\u00a0as well as Havanna and Monte Calme. I can’t say that I see all that much difference between the plants, but I’ll try to keep them apart when I dry them so to see if I (or more likely Sara) can taste a difference. I got them from tilbudet.se<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day I had a chat with an AI \u2013\u00a0as one does these days \u2013\u00a0asking for suggestions on how to build a robotic platform to exterminate the slugs that are infesting our garden. It suggested electro-shocking as means of murder and either a stationary platform with an arm, or a mobile hexapod roamer. As … Continue reading Killing Arion vulgaris<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doodles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7979"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7984,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7979\/revisions\/7984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monocultured.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}