Minimal Cultivation and Slugs

I have used minimal cultivation techniques for some years an my light, sandy soil and it is vary successful.  However, a spanner of sorts was thrown in the works on this morning's 'Farming Today This Week' on Radio 4 when it was mentioned in passing that this system will lead to an increase in the slug population.  I don't think it is such a problem that it outweighs the benefits, but it does explain why we get so many.

No, it was just a comment in passing.  It did relate to agricultural practices of course but their systems a very similar to gardeners, just on a bigger scale.

I have just come across this in an SAC leaflet:

Reduced Tillage and Pests
One of the benefits from reduced tillage is the increase in populations
of beneficial insects such as predatory ground beetles and parasitic
wasps over several seasons’ use. Ploughing tends to kill a proportion
of beneficial insects that overwinter in the soil, whereas adoption of
reduced tillage allows a greater degree of survival, and leads to a higher
level of natural control of pests such as slugs and aphids. Recent research
at SAC and elsewhere in the UK has demonstrated significant benefits
in pest management by natural enemies, with long term adoption of
reduced tillage techniques in conjunction with targeted insecticide use.
One potential downside of reduced tillage is a tendency for slug
populations to increase, as ploughing often kills slugs and slug eggs to
some extent. However, the increase in slug populations is overcome to
varying degrees by the build up of ground beetle populations that will
prey on slugs, and by the provision of alternative food sources such as
weeds and volunteers. Use of slug traps to gauge slug populations is
recommended, coupled with the use of metaldehyde slug pellets where
necessary to ensure that the newly sown crop does not get checked by
slugs.

So it looks like swings and roundabouts.

We seem to be in a naturally sluggy area.  Even in the garden amongst the ornamentals they are rife, hostas are not a possibility for example.  We do have plenty of hedgehogs about though. 

I have a supply of large sheets of cardboard and use this as weed suppressant with mulch on top.  In the vegetable rows I cultivate initially with a Canterbury hoe and then three prong cultivator and then put 4" of compost on top and work that down with a Wolf Cultivator.  When I am making planting holes for brassicas and the like the top soil is very good.  Because the land has a very low pH I am adding lime to brassica planting holes and to the compost I make.