Garlic Can Kill

Garlic may complement broiled snails, but the live ones don't particularly like it. Garlic extracts were found to be 80% as effective as the standard molluscicide, niclosamide, in trials conducted at the University of Gorakhpur, India.

Snails (Lymnaea acuminata) were exposed to four concentrations of garlic extract in an aquarium. Snail deaths were recorded every 24 hours over four days. Results showed that the molluscicide effect of garlic is time-as well as dose-dependent. When the toxicity of garlic was compared with the synthetic molluscidides phorate, formothion and carbaryl, the garlic extract proved more potent than phorate and carbaryl and less potent than formothion. Garlic extract is one fifth less potent than niclosamide.

Further extraction and purification of the active molluscicide in garlic may reveal that it is more effective than synthetic molluscicides in controlling snails, as well as less harmful to the environment.

D.K. Singh and A. Singh. Allium sativum (garlic), A Potent New Molluscicide. Biological Agriculture and Horticulture. Vol. 9, No. 2.

Contact:

D.K. Singh
Dept. of Zoology
University of Gorakhpur
Gorakhpur - 273 009
Uttar Pradesh, INDIA