Extension Service Site Publications

• (2024) How to create a slug trap using bread dough slurry This tutorial walks you through the steps and ingredients needed to create a slug trap using bread dough as an attractant. The steps shown here are an interpretation of the OSU field research, made approachable for a home gardener. You can make a bread dough using the researcher’s recipe and hand-pick the slugs from the dough or turn it into a slug slurry to attract the slugs who then drown in the liquid.
• (2024) Slug chat with OSU slug expert Rory McDonnell Watch the 45-minute lunchtime SLUG CHAT with Associate Professor and Primary Investigator of OSU’s Invertebrate Crop Pest Lab, Rory McDonnell. Dr. McDonnell’s work focuses on understanding the ecology of invasive slugs and snails, and developing and implementing novel strategies for their management. His work has been published in National Geographic, and the New Yorker, and countless scientific journals. You may have read about his recent discovery of the use of bread dough as the strongest attractant to bait slugs! Master Gardener Statewide Outreach Coordinator LeAnn Locher joined Dr. McDonnell to discuss Oregon gardeners’ most pressing questions about the slugs and snails we see in our garden, the damage that they do, and how we can better learn to live without (or with) them.
• (2024) Can essential oils control slugs?
• (2021) OSU research finds slugs go 'bonkers' for bread dough Slugs – which damage both agricultural crops and gardens – are highly attracted to bread dough, meaning that the simple food could be used as a nontoxic bait for trapping the pests.
• (2021) Guide to Ground Beetles in Grass Seed Crops Grown In the Willamette Valley, Oregon Ground beetles are an integral component of biological control in agricultural fields,
  but information on the species that are present in Oregon and throughout the United
  States is surprisingly limited. This guide was created as a quick reference for common
  ground beetles found in grass seed crops in the Willamette Valley.
• (2019) Will banana slugs eat my plants?