A research team in the U.K. has found a unique way to gather test subjects for a study: They've asked Brits to send them slugs by mail. Yes, slugs.
According to the Guardian, the study on grey field slugs is being carried out by a team of scientists and farmers as part of a project called Strategies Leading to Improved Management and Enhanced Resilience against Slugs — "SLIMERS" for short.
SLIMERS is intended to be a three-year project, per the Guardian, looking for solutions to what it calls "arable farming's biggest pest issue," referring to the farming of any land capable of being cultivated to grow crops. It started in 2023 with a budget of around $3.3 million from the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs.
This phase of the project is about developing slug-resistant wheat. To do that, the researchers need 1,000 slugs — and not just any slugs.
"The ones that we're specifically looking for are grey field slugs: they're the ones that are the agricultural pests," Tom Allen-Stevens told the Guardian. Allen-Stevens is the founder of the British On-Farm Innovation Network, which is leading the SLIMERS project.
"There is a slug called the leopard slug," he added. "And if you come across that for heaven's sake don't send it in, because they eat other slugs."
To help participants send in slugs — and make sure they're the right ones — SLIMERS is offering to send out "slug scout" packs, with containers for the slugs, pre-paid envelopes, and a guide that teaches both how to attract slugs and how to identify their species.
If successful, these efforts could lead to hardier crops and larger harvests without the need for polluting and toxic chemicals or even eco-friendly slug control methods. That's a big deal because, according to the Guardian, slugs cause over $55 million in damages each year in the UK alone.
Not only that but a popular slug control chemical, metaldehyde, was banned in the UK for its toxicity in 2022 — meaning that the slug problem has only grown. Other pesticides are available, but according to Allen-Stevens, everyone knows chemical killers should not be overused.
"Where we can we want to apply pesticides more precisely and everyone in the industry recognises that's the right direction to go in. And farmers don't want to spread slug pellets where they're not needed," he said, per the Guardian.
The slugs being mailed to them will help keep the project alive — although they have a better chance of doing that if they're sent early in the week. "That's just in case they sit in a post room over the weekend," Allen-Stevens said, per the Guardian. "That's the main thing. … Don't post them before a weekend or a bank holiday."
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