Ants & Aphids, o my!

[jhouse]

Hi all,

I haven't gardened in a couple of years, and tilled a new area (from lawn) for the garden this year. I noticed quite a few ants when preparing the area.

My tomatoes (grown from seed) have been in the ground since Memorial day, and are looking good -- but I have about a million ants now!

I've seen one or two aphids on leaves, and then a small cluster of them today -- a few on the pepper plants too --

So my question is, am I heading into a bigger problem? I've heard ants farm aphids, and there are ants scurrying everywhere. Seriously, everywhere.

I'm also in a blight-y area, so am spraying Daconil about once a week -- had to spray once for flea beetles but I think we're okay with that for now.

Thanks for any advice!

Jan H.

[Starlight]

Ants are big problem here. I buy boxes of quick grits and sprinkle it all over the place and especially on their hills. I wait a few hours and let them eat them water the heck out of hills. Usually kills them all off in a day or two.

I use dish soap for the aphids. I coat the plants with soap, wait about ten minutes then jet spray em clean. Been doing that for years with no problems. I do recommend doing in early morning or late in evening when sun off the plants. Also jet spray down. If you spray sideways you just spread them onto your other plants. Takes a bit of time to get rid of all the aphids. The stinkers will hide in tiny joints and creavices and soon as your back is turned they back to eating and laying hundreds more aphids.

Other folks may have better methods for you.

[gorbelly]

I don't consider ants a problem, but I'm not in fire ant territory.

To me, ants are overall neutral to positive in the garden. Yes, they farm aphids, but the problem is really the aphids, not the ants. Take care of the aphids, and the ants will find something else to do.

I've never had an issue with them eating my plants, not even the tender seedlings. Meanwhile, they aerate soil, eat other bugs, clean up the place, etc.

The worst they do is carry off some of the Sluggo, but so does everything else, it seems. It's just more impressive when you see a tiny ant carrying off a piece of slug bait that probably outweighs it by 5-10x than when the chipmunks or the birds do it.

What's the mechanism by which grits are supposed to kill ants? Ants love grain and would probably thrive on it if you weren't drowning them after feeding them.

[jhouse]

I've seen conflicting information on the ants -- some say they will bring in more aphids if you eliminate the aphids. I suspect you might be right though.

[My Foot Smells]

In an entire ant colony, only one ant is laying eggs: the queen. The worker and soldier ants will never mate or lay eggs. New queens (and drones to mate with them) are produced periodically, and usually leave the nest to start their own colonies.

So how fast does a colony grow? Queens lay eggs constantly, to a tune of hundreds or thousands a day. While not all will survive, especially in the early days of the colony, you can see how quickly the population can rise (it takes a few weeks for an egg to mature to adult).

In your example, so long as one of your 1000 ants is a queen, you can reach a million in a few years, maybe sooner.

********

Topical treatment more than likely will just kill off the worker ants and do very little in controlling the overall ant population. Ants are very important and the world depends on them to clean up the forest floor. It has been a bad year for ants here, maybe mild winter increased, but there are maybe a gazillion in my yard alone.

That being said, I had a rash of fire ants about five years ago. Big mounds and very destructive. They would suck things dry, killing all ornamental grasses and wrecking havoc on fruit trees and the such. I talked to a "bug guy" and he agreed to squirt down the property. A backpack hand pump sprayer, 2 acres worth. He never told me what it was (after several requests), but after the application, I haven't seen a fire ant since.

However, since the fire ant was extinguished (to my amazement, after spending $hundreds of dollars trying to deal with the problem myself - the pro just charged $200), a new order of insects invaded the property. Other kinds of ants, beetles, etc....

I will take it though, fire ants are a terrible problem to have and they bite. All the ants have settled down now that the monsoon season has passed. When I was getting heavy rains, the ants would come to the surface in droves. They can be abusive to potted plants, but I usually pull the plant and dunk em out of those.

In short, my opinion: six in one hand, half a dozen in the other. It is quite unlikely that your garden will be a surgical suite.

[jhouse]

lol, true re surgical suite. all about balance.

the aphids remind me a bit of a flea infestation I had a couple years back -- I was all set to do the diatomaceous earth thing, hated the pesticide route because of my cat. (ex feral & hard to get in a crate & remove from the house).

After a week or two, the fleas absolutely exploded and I conceded defeat & got the exterminator. At that level of infestation it took 3 applications -- I don't like chemicals but at some point I just want to get the job done. Being chewed on by fleas was a quite a motivator.

In any case, I'll be interested to see how the Azamax does -- shouldn't bother the beneficals as they don't eat the plants, and the tomatoes & peppers look healthy today after yesterday's application. (had to do it mid day in the sun, the peppers were shaded, tomatoes not).

Next season I'll be thinking about introducing beneficials as preventative, since surviving aphid eggs could overwinter. (looked it up, apparently southern aphids give birth to live young & don't lay eggs, but northern aphids lay eggs. I'm in southwestern Ohio, so ??)

I might get some predators this year if I can convince the husband that those tomatoes & hot peppers are worth the $. He's the one wanting hot pepper flakes after all ;-)

[b54red]

I use a mix of DE, very soapy water and a bit of Permethrin to get rid of aphids when they get bad. The permethrin and soapy water will kill most of the adults and the fine layer of DE on the plants takes care of the newly hatched aphids until a heavy rain washes it off. Unlike the soap spray which I used to use this mix doesn't need to be reapplied very often if at all. Three years ago I had a bad infestation of aphids on my peppers and tomatoes and found myself spraying with soapy water twice a week or more for most of the season just to stay even with them. The problem with that was the amount of work and the leaves started looking really bad after about a month so I guess the frequent heavy application of soapy water was affecting them poorly. I tried using a lower concentration of soap but found it didn't work as well on the aphids. Adding the DE and the Permethrin brought amazing results quickly.

I use quite a heavy solution of DE in the mix. I use about 1/2 to 2/3rds of a cup of food grade DE to a gallon of mix. In order for this not to stop up my sprayer I learned the hard way that you need to mix some of the water and all of the DE in a separate jug and shake it very well and then strain it into the sprayer through a very fine strainer then add the other ingredients an more water.

Bill

[jhouse]

Bill, that sounds pretty darn good. Could you post the complete recipe?

thanks!

[Stvrob]

I had some kind of new ant last year, slicing up leaves and carrying off the pieces from a grape vine. I poured a pot of boiling water on the nest and haven't seem them since. Anyone else encountered these new leaf cutting ants?

[jhouse]

I think they're called. . .Leafcutter ants. .

found em on wikipedia but had trouble doing the link.

[Starlight]

Originally Posted by gorbelly

I don't consider ants a problem, but I'm not in fire ant territory.

To me, ants are overall neutral to positive in the garden. Yes, they farm aphids, but the problem is really the aphids, not the ants. Take care of the aphids, and the ants will find something else to do.

I've never had an issue with them eating my plants, not even the tender seedlings. Meanwhile, they aerate soil, eat other bugs, clean up the place, etc.

The worst they do is carry off some of the Sluggo, but so does everything else, it seems. It's just more impressive when you see a tiny ant carrying off a piece of slug bait that probably outweighs it by 5-10x than when the chipmunks or the birds do it.

What's the mechanism by which grits are supposed to kill ants? Ants love grain and would probably thrive on it if you weren't drowning them after feeding them.

I agree with the fact that ants have their part to play in the ecological system. There are plants that require ants for pollination and as long as I don't see aphids all over the plants I let them be. Peonies are a good example of needing ants to eat the waxy coat off the blooms so they will open up. The ants are also food for many of the small critters like all the tiny lizards that room around.

Mostly they are not too much of a problem until they start colonizing in my containers, destroying my plants, then they have to go. Lots of open ground for them, my pots are off limits.

I don't even spray to get rid of the aphids until they getting to a point where they will cause economic losses as the lady bugs need aphids for food if I want to keep them around, plus their other creatures that survive on the aphids too. Even some types of birds eat the ants.

It's all a matter of finding a balance between your pests and predators and your plants. Some get to stay, some pests got to go. Removing all pests and all the beneficials leave and then your left with just having to use chems if a major problem arises.

The ants take the grits back to the nest and it causes them to blow up when they consume water. It usually doesn't kill all the ants. There are some that always manage to escape and they move on to other areas where they just start again. I usually don't grit unless they have made huge hives in my containers or have a huge mound around in my work area.

[Cole_Robbie]

http://www.thedailyworld.com/news/an...before-people/
Ants have been farming plants for millions of years, long before people

[brownrexx]

I do not mind ants and they do not seem to bother my garden. If you are seeing ants, chances are that they were drawn by another problem as in your case - aphids.

If I see ants climbing my fruit trees, I do not kill the ants but I look for another problem which has exposed some sap which is drawing the ants. Usually I find some area of damage like were some other insect has damaged the bark and is maybe eating into the tree.

Ants are not bad guys. Note - I do not have fire ants.

[gorbelly]

Grits don't kill ants. They either provide landscaping material for the ants, or, with some species, they feed the colony via the larvae, which can eat the grits and then feed liquefied stomach contents back to the workers. Adult ants don't eat dry grain-type foods like grits. The "blowing them up" thing is pure myth.

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by brownrexx

I do not mind ants and they do not seem to bother my garden. If you are seeing ants, chances are that they were drawn by another problem as in your case - aphids.

Agreed that most of the time, they're there for honeydew from sap-sucking pests.

However, ants also seem fond of nectar in flowers. They climb all over my squash, and I find bunches of them down in the bases of the flowers. They also seem to carry off the pollen. I was concerned the ant activity would deter bees in my squash flowers or reduce pollen, therefore causing problems with fruit set, but it didn't.

They also seemed to love my ground cherry blossoms, but there was NO problem there with fruit set at all.