Factors Influencing the Efficiency and Attractiveness of Land Snails to Different Baits under Laboratory and Field Conditions, at Sharkia Governorate

Abstract

The attractiveness of poison and non-poison baits to land snail,Monacha cartusiana were tested under laboratory and field conditions. Results in laboratory revealed that the highest attractive rate was recorded for non-poison baits the type sugarcane syrup (32.5% in 25.37 min.) followed by vanilla (28 % in 6.82 min.), while yeast showed the lowest one (3% in 1.0 min.) at 5 cm distance. Concerning weight of bait preference, 2 g proved superior to other tested weights in attractive snail numbers for all baits except sugarcane syrup with 8 gm. Regarding metaldehyde compounds poison baits, the highest mortality percentages were (93.33 %) for Gastrotex treated with 75% soil moisture 14 days post treatment and for Molotov (73.33 %) at 100% soil moisture 21 days post treatment. In the field studies, both of light blue Metarol (40 pellets/m2) and orange Molotov (54pellets/m2) proved to be more effective in reducing snails numbers than green Gastrotex (26 pellets/m2), while blue Gentrazol (102 pellets/m2) was found to be the lowest toxic one, by the end of the experiment (7days). Regarding direction effects revealed that North and East for Mesurol and Western-North and Eastern-North direction for Gastrotex, recorded the greater number of attractivity in the first day than the second and third days. The general mean of Mesurol exhibited slightly increase than metaldehyde in snail attractively. Our results highlight some factors to improve molluscicide baits performance which enhance attractiveness rate, helping in formulating new policies for better management of M. cartusiana snail.