I've seen a couple of discussions recently about using caffeine for a coffee soak to kill bush snails -- those tiny little ones that can't be lured out by other dastardly killing means.
Most of the posts say to search "coffee" or "coffee snail" to find out more. When i tried that I mostly found more posts that say "search to find out more."
So I wanted to ask specifically about the technique.
First I assume coffee is mentioned because it is readily available to most growers and is not all that toxic in its normal form. Another common household-source for caffeine is tea. Is there any reason for or against using tea? Has anybody done that?
Obviously we would want the soak to be at room temperature and not fresh off the boil.
I saw that some people are concerned or had some damage to the roots from the coffee and it is suggested to first soak the roots in regular water to get them hydrated so they won't try and take up the coffee. Then do an hour coffee soak and then do a rinse soak to remove any coffee. The idea that after an hour the bush snails would have absorbed lethal (to them) amounts of caffeine.
Is there any reason to think using tea would be any different? Better or worse for the roots?
Finally I'm not quite clear on the concentration. If I need a gallon of water to cover all the roots how much coffee (or how many tea bags) should I use?
Coffee or tea with bush snails
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