Slug damage is quietly costing UK arable farmers an eye-watering £43.5 million every year — and this year, researchers believe they’re closer than ever to turning the tide.
A UK team led by the UK Agri-Tech Centre in collaboration with Rothamsted Research has identified a bright idea — literally — using multispectral imaging to spot the notorious grey field slug out on the soil. That’s big news for crops that are especially vulnerable at establishment when slug pressure is high.
Traditionally, farmers have relied on chemical slug pellets across whole fields — a blanket approach that’s under increasing regulatory scrutiny and isn’t always what the environment ordered. This new approach aims to let machines see slugs in real time using just five specific wavelengths of light — from ultraviolet and blue to green and near-infrared. That’s enough to differentiate slugs from soil and crop debris, paving the way for smart, targeted monitoring and control.
Dr Jenna Ross, technical lead on the SLIMERS project, called it a “game-changing solution” for monitoring these pesky pests. The idea is simple but clever: spot slugs where they are, not everywhere they aren’t.
If that capability can be turned into a robust tool — perhaps built into autonomous cameras or machinery — growers could make better-informed decisions on when and where to act, potentially cutting costs and environmental impact.
This work forms part of two Innovate UK-backed programmes, SlugBot and SLIMERS — the latter a three-year, £2.6 million collaboration involving more than 100 farms and seven partners including Harper Adams University, the John Innes Centre, Fotenix, Farmscan Ag and Agrivation.
Researchers caution there’s more to do before this high-tech slug sighting becomes a field-ready reality — factors like crop cover, residues and lighting conditions will need thorough testing. For now though, it’s a brilliant example of innovation meeting a long-standing challenge right where the soil meets the spade.
