Ahhh...fireantsss.

fireant colony as invaded one of my plants root system. this plant is nearly dead if not already. if theres anythnig i can kill\deter them without killing the plant it obviously preferable. thanks... still smokin

NATURALYTE
MONTERAY GARDEN INSECT SPRAY

anything with the active ingredient SPINOSAD


J

Amdro fire ant killer. It's primary ingredient is dead African fireants

This post is so timely! I have two plants with the exact same problem. My plants are potted but recessed in the ground with the ants coming up through the drain holes. The infestation isn't too bad, but that's only a matter of time. I have two giant sunflower plants that are badly infested with fireants but do not seem affected.

They must have been attracted from the moisture leaking from the pots. I wish they would just drink from the bowl of water I have out for humidity. There must be a natural spray that deters them from the plant.

Naturalyte - not available in CA

Monterey Garden Insect spray - spinosad needs to be ingested for it to work, so bugs that suck juice from the plants are not affected.

Amdro - has the better chance of working but results are mixed. It is a granular that needs to be taken back to the colony. What I had noticed from my sunflower plants is that when the fireants latch on to drink they can stay there for a very long time. Watching my two Acapulco Golds that are infested, I see that most of the traffic (80%) is going up the stock, very few head back down to leave.

I'll keep looking and see if there is anything else that is better.

I live in the south, trust me, you can't spray fire ants. You have to treat the entire colony, much of it you never see far below the surface. Amdro takes 2 days.... there is no miracle cure to make them leave pronto. Look at it this way, they are aerating the soil for you.

It just may be easier than I thought.

I'm going to give a few of these a try.

http://doubledanger.com/living-green/10-tips-for-organic-ant-control

LOL


Good Luck!

Serapis said:

I live in the south, trust me, you can't spray fire ants.

Click to expand...

That just may be the difference. I live in the dry Mojave desert and at this time of the year the only thing green are my plants. I imagine in the south with the much higher humidity they are looking more for food than a water supply, thus the reason why my infestation isn't that bad. They're not coming back with food which would mean the rest of the colony would be alerted to the new food source. I've had ants on these two plants for seven days now. If they really wanted to take it over, I would almost be powerless.

I was looking for something that I could spray on the plant that would deter the ants from coming on board. I would prefer not to have anything that kills insects on my plants - only as a last resort.

Some of those ideas might work then. Here, if you notice fire ants, it's because they have already established a nice mound. I'll have to get some pictures and share, we have then terrible this time of year when temps are up.

Those little fuc****...when i lived in New Orleans they got in my plants and burrowed paths in the middle of the plants,then the termits followed them in and ate my plants from the inside out...They got them all!

Agreed, I used to live in New orleans too, and those lil bastards are so hard to kill. I remember during floods you could see grapefruit sized balls of ants on top of the floodwaters surface. They actually will carry the queen out of the mound, surround her and float around until they find dry land. I remember when I was really young I touched one of the floating balls of ants, worst thing I ever did lol. I say death to them all.
As for getting rid of them? Good luck, we used to try everything from gasoline, to the industrial pesticides. The key thing to realize is that these ants usually build their nest anywhere from 3 to 5 feet deep into the ground, making it hard to get anything able to kill them down there. Not much of anything works on these guys. Best thing would be something specifically for fire ants as they are somewhat resistant to alot of pesticides.

Try burrying your friend nearby with honey on his head lol

i would do both short term and long term treatment. for short term, a great and safe weapon to combat bugs like ants is dish soap. when i was a kid i would experiment with mixing different chemicals together and pour them on bugs cause i liked to kill things and people was out of the question and i like animals so i took it out on bugs cause i fucking hate the fucking fuckers. mix a little dish soap in water, pour it on ants and watch them die. if they are not dying fast then you need to add more dish soap. not sure if there is a better kind but i recommend dawn. its crazy its like they freeze in place. i think it like suffocates them. now these firey red bastards are always going to reproduce and come back. thats where you need some kind of long term treatment. i would put out some terro. they load up on that shit, bring it to the nest, and after a while the terro hardens, killing any ant that consumed it. keep putting it out after they eat it all. it may take from 1-3 weeks. the best treatment i actually found is raid, however that is some nasty shit and i wouldnt use it around pot plants or any kind of plant that is to be consumed. the nice thing about raid though is it leaves behind an oily residue which we will get back to. ants have a very effective instinct that leads them to food. when ants travel, they leave behind chemicals called pheromones which have a strong scent to other ants. the ants leave this behind to direct other ants to the food pile. so basically when only a single ant finds food, the whole colony will know in no time. so when getting rid of ants, cleaning and sterilization is also important. that oily residue in raid actually leaves behind a scent kind of the opposite of the ant's pheromones, repelling them. so maybe use raid directly on the acts colony or around the plants, but i wouldnt use raid close to the plants. good luck! and watch out those bastards are aggressive. i live up north and we dont have the problems like down south, but we do have these biting red ants and i tell you they're crazy. you mess with their nest and swarms of them will actually come at you. if theres enough of them it actually looks like the ground is moving. at my cousins house he had a huge nest at the end of his driveway and we would throw firecrackers at them. to this day i still cant believe seeing what looked like a large piece of land matter coming right for us. they are even suicidal, no matter how many you kill, they don't stop. musta been a huge nest they had going, after about 10 years im pretty sure they are still there. what happens when you live in the sticks though...

I had to go to work this afternoon, so as an experiment I applied a ring of vaseline around the stalk at two different locations - one at the very bottom and one three nodes higher. I watched for two minutes after applying the vaseline and I witnessed plenty of ants on their way up turn right back around upon approaching the ring of grease. The stupid thing was is that I should have shaken the plant to get fling off as many ants a possible before putting on the vaseline. The few that were trying to come down retreated back up the plant. At the moment it is working as a great barrier. The big question is how long will the vaseline stay on there. It's currently 106 degrees right now and I'm curious if the vaseline is going to melt off the stalk. The shade of the leaves might offer protection. I'll let you know.

Unfortunatley this probably doesn't help the originator of this post as I probably have no more than 100 ants on each plant now, which isn't too threatening. If you are already overrun you might have to call in "Broken Arrrow".

Ants suck. The only thing you can do is TRY to keep the infestation managable. More often than not, by the time you notice the little fucks it's almost too late.

6. Mix together one-third cup of molasses, six tablespoons of sugar, and six tablespoons of active dry yeast into a smooth paste. Use the mixture to coat strips of cardboard. Keep out of reach of pets and small children. You can leave mixture on a saucer outside anthill and they’ll eat it and die!


You could almost feed this to your plants.

Ants can be beneficial... I wouldn't want a mound of them in my roots when i try to harvest, BUT, they prey on many insects and they aerate your soil with tunneling. I don't think fire ants eat vegetative growth, they eat other insects and meat.

I came back from work to see that the top band of vaseline still on the stalk, though a bit dried out, and with no ants crossing. The bottom ring was still there as well, but a few ants can find a single path where the vaseline wasn't as thick, but are now stuck below the higher band. Their sheer determination is scary. Overall it has the potential to keep them off if I don't have to apply too often. I did notice that the stalk above the third node have a slightly darkened look from the vaseline as I'm sure it absorbed some of it. That will be wiped off and kept as low as possible as the stalk and fiber is more coarse at the base. I'm sure that an application of vaseline on more tender/absorbing plant material would not be good.

I don't have a good enough camera to focus in on the ants buried in the stalks of these plants. This is the best one I can provide if it's possible to notice the build up of ants on the right leaf stem and outer leaf of my sunflower plant. This picture was taken July 27th and at that time I could have sworn that the ants seen in this picture where the same ones there everyday, as if they never left. I think they just open up a "vein" and start sucking from it like they are at some bar. I agree that fire ants don't eat vegetation, but if the environment is dry and they need a source of water, they will tap into a plant and suck. That's what actually worries me! The firey and itchy sensation you get from being bit from fire ants is from either the saliva or a secrection from the ant, I can't remember which. If you find a fire ant bite annoying, how does that plant take it?

I bought some Amdro at Home Depot to surround the pots with this stuff and see if they take an interest. I would imagine you wouldn't want to put this stuff above the roots (where the ants are coming from) and water over it leeching into the soil. I'll have to look into it some more.

SPINOSAD works on fireants. it says so in the directions.


i live in the UK and have to pay $19.99 for a pint with $34 to ship it from USA.


J

I dont know how beneficial ants are?Maybe to the soil and cleaning up all the crap on the ground..but i know they farm sap eating bugs on your plants and guard them.I try and keep them in cheek in the green house and put sticky stuff around the base of my plants to keep them off.My greenhouse is starting to fill with fall spiders now and they love to eat ants

The amdro should be spread out in a ring about 3' from the mound. If you put it directly on the mound, they'll attack it and carry it away, not into the mound like you want. We want them to view it as food, not an enemy. Once discovered, they'll carry it into the mound to feed queen and the males.

check out the ingredients on that stuff. It made me shiver. It has some bad ass dead ants in it as bait.