Objective: To establish the engineering management mode of mollusciciding, and assess its snail control effect in field application, so as to provide the effective management interventions for improving the quality of mollusciciding in the field.
Methods: Engineering management of mollusciciding was performed. The snail distribution was surveyed before and after snail control with molluscicides and environmental modification, and the database was established. The snail control effect of the engineering management mode of mollusciciding was assessed.
Results: Engineering management mode of mollusciciding was conducted in 96.27% (1 033/1 073) of the total snail habitats in 6 counties (districts) of Yangzhou City from 2006 to 2011. After the implementation of engineering management mode, the mortality of snails increased from 65.07% before implementation to 87.16% (80.65%-89.38%), and significant difference was observed (chi2 = 4 623.297, P = 0). The reductions in occurrence rate of frames with snails and snail density and the corrected mortality of snails were 57.67% (49.27%-66.98%), 76.67% (76.13%-83.66%) and 86.58% (79.89%-88.89%), respectively, which were 1.45, 1.63 times and 1.37 times more than those before implementation. After the implementation of engineering management mode of mollusciciding for 3 years in Yangzhou City, all infected snails were eliminated. After 6 years of implementation, the number of settings with snails, snail areas, occurrence rate of frames with snails, means snail density decreased by 56.27%, 76.40%, 67.99% and 66.67%, respectively.
Conclusions: High-quality molluscicide is the essential factor to ensure the molluscicidal effect, and engineering management mode of mollusciciding is an effective approach to improve the quality of snail control with molluscicides in the field.