Bool Lagoon farmer Neil Teate tried “everything” to rid his crops of the costly pests.

About 90 per cent of his land was sown to canola, wheat, barley and beans.

Barley was the worst affected by snails and he suspected canola to be the root cause.

“Since we’ve been growing canola we’ve had real problems,” he said.

“It’s got to the stage where we will be very selective about where we plant canola, because of the issues and expense.”

Mr Teate gave up harvesting some of his crops last season because of the damage and he lost thousands of dollars in seed.

Snails are wet and “get smashed up in the header...and the seed sticks to the snails and it goes straight out the back of the header”.

The 2010-11 harvest was harmed by weather which suited snails.

“It never really got hot and it was wet and humid,” Mr Teate said.

Snails are easily managed in the hot weather but they thrive in wet, cool conditions.

Mr Teate spent thousands of dollars trying to contain the snails.

He baited his crops twice and still some snails survived.

“We burn paddocks, we plough in the heat of the day, and we use harrows to knock them out on to the ground in 40 degree heat,” he said.

“Everything we can possibly do, we do.”

Reynolds Seed Service owner Andrew Brodie said the season had been particularly bad for broadacre farmers.

“The worst thing about it is the price of wheat and barley...prices were down,” he said.

The white button snail and conical snail did the damage.

Mr Brodie said it was good that farmers baited and tried to prevent as much damage to crops as possible - but it came down to cost.

“How much money can you throw at things when the prices are down?”