MEET Ruth Brooks — the snail woman of Totnes.

Mrs Brooks is at the forefront of a national scientific experiment to sort out a humane answer to the scourge of gardeners, the veg-devouring common snail, and whether they possess in-built snail sat nav.

Her experiment is aimed at discovering whether once you have evicted the pesky gastropods from your garden they simply just come back.

She is inviting everyone in Totnes to team-up with their neighbours to take part in a snail swap to see if garden snails have a homing instinct.

The 69-year-old writer and amateur scientist who lives in Mansbridge Road, Totnes, is carrying out the experiment with Dr Dave Hodgson, a scientist from the University of Exeter's school of bioscience, as part of the BBC Radio 4's Material World programme's BBC Amateur Scientist of the Year contest.

Mrs Brook put forward her snail question to a BBC team and it was one of four chosen to be worked up into a full scale scientific experiment.

In September Mrs Brook will be heading to Birmingham for the British Science Association Festival to see if her experiment has won the chance to see it written up and published in a major scientific journal.

A keen gardener Mrs Brooks, who has lived in Totnes for 16 years, has suffered from voracious snails. She has spent hundreds of pounds trying to combat them without putting down slug pellets, which she fears could harm the soil itself as well as birds and other wildlife.

She said that because of Devon's heavy clay soil the county suffers particularly badly from snail attacks.

"It's a big problem. I have heard of one person who moved out of the county to Lincolnshire because of the snails," she said.

Her nationwide experiment involves gardeners or families collecting snails — the garden snail helix aspersa — marking them with a particular colour nail polish and then swapping them with snails from a neighbour or friend who does not live too far away.

The idea is to then note when your own snails make an appearance back in your garden — how far they have travelled and how long it has taken.

The results have to be inputted through the BBC Radio 4 website at www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/snails

Ms Brooks said: "I've always wanted to know whether the snails that decimate my plants just come back when I move them, and if they do, what is their homing distance? How far away would I have to move them so they won't come back?

"We're hoping the evidence from will give us an insight into the behaviour of snails, as well as help us find a way to deal with the problems they pose."